Fin Cop

Nearest town:
Bakewell (6km ESE)
OS reference:
SK175712
OS sheet:
119
Latitude:
53° 14' 13.84 N
Longitude:
1° 44' 15.98 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Fin Cop (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Fin Cop is the flat-topped hill, top left. From Monsal Head.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.9.2021)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jul 31, 2022
Image of Fin Cop (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

The southern rampart, from the south where the ground drops rapidly.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.9.2021)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jul 31, 2022
Image of Fin Cop (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Disturbed ground surface around the highest part of the fort. The rampart can be seen in the middle distance, running across the picture.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.9.2021)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jul 31, 2022
Image of Fin Cop (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Looking down on Monsal Dale from the northern edge of the fort.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.9.2021)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jul 31, 2022
Image of Fin Cop (Hillfort) by postman

looking along the defences and entrance on the northern edge

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Jan 31, 2011
Image of Fin Cop (Hillfort) by postman

From Monsal dale viaduct, Fin cop towers above the river Wye

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Jan 31, 2011
Image of Fin Cop (Hillfort) by GLADMAN

Glorious evening light, looking towards Monsal Dale from the promontory fort.......

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jul 18, 2010
Image of Fin Cop (Hillfort) by stubob

05/03. Eastern ends double banks and ditches. ( Monsal, Cressbrook and Miller’s Dale can all be seen in the background).

stubob
stubob May 7, 2003

Articles

Fin Cop

Mass burial suggests massacre at Iron Age hill fort

juamei
juamei Apr 18, 2011

Archaeologists have found evidence of a massacre linked to Iron Age warfare at a hill fort in Derbyshire.

A burial site contained only women and children – the first segregated burial of this kind from Iron Age Britain.

Nine skeletons were discovered in a section of ditch around the fort at Fin Cop in the Peak District.

Scientists believe “perhaps hundreds more skeletons” could be buried in the ditch, only a small part of which has been excavated so far.

Construction of the hill fort has been dated to some time between 440BC and 390BC, but it was destroyed before completion.

The fort’s stone wall was broken apart and the rubble used to fill the 400m perimeter ditch, where the skeletons were found.

A second, outer wall and ditch had been started but not finished.

bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13082240

Fin Cop

Derbyshire Iron Age bones were of pregnant woman

texlahoma
texlahoma Jun 16, 2010

Tests carried out on a skeleton discovered at an archaeological dig in Derbyshire have found it was that of a pregnant woman.

Experts said they were surprised by the female find because the site, near Monsal Dale in the Peak District, had been believed to be a military scene.

Now, extra lottery funding means there can be a second dig at the Fin Cop hill fort site to find out more.

Archaeologists unearthed the Iron Age skeleton last August.

During the excavation, the woman was uncovered among the jumbled stone of a collapsed rampart.
More here news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/8691348.stm

Fin Cop

Fin Cop 2010

stubob
stubob Jun 4, 2010

Fin Cop is going to be excavated again in July and August of 2010 by Clive Waddington of Archaeological Research Services in conjunction with the National Park Authority, Longstone Local History Group, English Heritage and Natural England and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Open days will be held every Saturday of the five week dig; July 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st meeting in the Monsal Head car park, overlooking the viaduct, at 11am and 1pm.

Fin Cop

Body Find Sparks Peak District Stir

stubob
stubob Sep 28, 2009

Dr Clive Waddington and the Longstone Local History Group, excavated Fin Cop in July 2009, several open days for public viewing were held...

“It is believed the Iron Age hillfort is between 3,000 and 2,000 years old. Radiocarbon dating of surviving material is likely to enable more accurate dating. Tools and weapons made from stone from the Lake District and the Yorkshire Wolds or Lincolnshire were also found. The corpse will be analysed to try to determine its sex, age and origin. The adult skeleton, which had been thrown into a ditch and covered with stones, was uncovered during a three-week dig at the site”.
Liz Roberts Grough Website.

The results will be announced at a Derbyshire Archaelogical Day in Chesterfield in January next year.

Fin Cop

postman
postman Jan 31, 2011

Bruvvs describes Fin cop as a fabulous place, he in my opinion was only half right, it is indeed a place, but as to it’s fabulousness I can not attest.
Ive never really felt at home in the Peak district, even though its the only national park that is in my home county. (just a small bit) I get an oppressive feeling from the place, as if it doesnt really want me poking around. I know it’s just me, I just can’t help it.
From the 150 place car park, we headed to Hobbs cafe and took the high path way above the river wye heading directly for the highest point, this I hoped was the hillfort, my map is strangely rubbed free of detail right on the bit we need, (probably accounts for my delay in getting here), apart from being on the wrong side of the wall, it was the right path.
The entrance and defences on either side of it are still in pretty good shape, though the fenced off excavation scars are a tadd ugly, will they be back soon?
We followed the earthworks over the well made drystone wall, (though presumably not as good as Stonegloves) but in this field the defences are not very defending anymore, but recognisable all the way to the edge of the steeeeep hilside.
We then followed the hillsde round and dropped down to the river via Hobbs cave.

Fin Cop

Bruvs
Bruvs Sep 25, 2007

It’s a fabulous place. The path up to the enclosure was called Pennyunk / Penyonke [Lane] back to the 1300s and likely long before[geograph.org.uk/photo/351089] as this seems to be a pre-English [i.e. Old Welsh] name [it doesn’t make any sense in Old English but does in the language spoken in the Peak until the 7th/8th C]. Pennyunk would have meant something like ‘headland of [the] youth’ in Old Welsh [Pen = top, end, head, headland; Iouanc = youth, youngster]. It’s possible that this was the pre-English, P-Celtic, name for the enclosure. After all, Penbroga [= ‘land’s end’ = Pembroke] goes back to the Iron Age... Cf. the shape of the hill with another ‘penn’; Pendle.

Fin Cop

stubob
stubob May 6, 2003

The fort at Fin Cop is an easy walk from the Monsal Dale Hotel, with some excellent views of Monsal Dale below on the trek out.

The fort is defended to the South and East by banks and ditches and to the North and West by the steep sides of Monsal Dale. At the Eastern side, the side you approach from, double banks and ditches are still impressive, an entrance is central to this part of the defences, which carry on over the wall in the form of a single bank.

The views from the top are unreal with Five Wells in the West, Kinder Scout just visible in the North and Beeley Moor quite close in the South-East(ish).
Monsal is one of the best places to watch a Derbyshire sunset without doubt.

An added attraction this time of the year are the banks of the fort covered in Mountain Pansies and ‘Early Purple’ Orchids.

Folklore

Fin Cop
Hillfort
stubob
stubob May 6, 2003

Fin Cop is another one of those places, Barbrook II another, where it’s reckoned that if you spend a night up there..........you’ll go mad.

Topics

Iron age hill fort burials 6
W
wychburyman
Apr 2011

Sites within 20km of Fin Cop

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