Excavations at the site have dated construction of a Neolithiccausewayed enclosure back to around 4000 BC. An extensive bank and ditch as well as a bank barrow burial mound are evident from this period at the eastern end.
However most of the works at the site date from around 450 to 300 BC, when an earlierIron Age hillfort dating to c. 600 BC was extended and enlarged with three new ditch-and-bank earthworks built creating the main fortifications in a set of three concentric rings with offset entrance points.
The fort was probably occupied by the Durotriges, a Celtic tribe at the time of the Roman invasion. The site may have been attacked and invested by the 2nd Legion under Vespasian in AD 43. Mortimer Wheeler created a vivid account of the fall of the hill fort in his report following the excavations of 1934-1937. Later examination of his records by Niall Sharples has largely discounted this interpretation and it is no longer thought that the fort was besieged or violently taken by the Romans.
The Romans occupied the site but concentrated their efforts in the area around Durnovaria. There was some Roman construction at the site, including a small temple built around AD 400. The site was abandoned by the Romans soon after that date and was not re-occupied, remaining deserted from then on.
The name Maiden is believed to derive from the Brythonic for great hill, mai dun.
A castle (from the Latin castellum, diminutive of castra, a military camp, in turn the plural of castrum or watchpost), is a fort, a camp and the logical development of a fortified enclosure.
Castles were also developed to defend key part of the countryside such as a mountain pass or river estuary, and often made use of the natural geography to support the defensive walls through exploitation of cliffs, rivers, hills, and the like.
The word "castle" (castel) was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest to denote a type of fortress, then new to the country, brought in by the Norman knights whom Edward the Confessor had sent for to defend Herefordshire against the inroads of the Welsh.
A château (French for castle; plural châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of gentry, usually French, with or without fortifications.
In addition to the castle walls, other defensive features include towers at the angular direction changes of walls, moats, drawbridges, battlements, portcullises, etc. The moated manor house of Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire, England Moats were deep and wide trenches, usually filled with water, to provide a barrier against attack upon castle ramparts or other fortifications.
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