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Maiden Castle, Dorset

Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hillfort south-west of Dorchester in Dorset and one of the largest in Europe. It began as a Neolithic enclosure, and in the 1st millennium BCE it was enlarged with several lines of massive ramparts and complex gateways. Mortimer Wheeler excavated it in the 1930s, and it was abandoned in favour of the Roman town of Durnovaria.

Maiden Castle, Dorset
Image: Major George Allen (1891–1940) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Maiden Castle, Dorset. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/maiden-castle-dorset
MLA
“Maiden Castle, Dorset.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/maiden-castle-dorset. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Maiden Castle, Dorset.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/maiden-castle-dorset.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Maiden Castle, Dorset’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/maiden-castle-dorset (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻