Maiden Castle is a huge Iron Age hillfort – it’s about the size of 50 football pitches. In fact, it is one of the largest and most complex Iron Age hillforts in Europe. We climbed up the ramparts to reach the flat area at the top, which was once home to the Durotriges tribe. We thought about what life would have been like for the people that lived and worked there, around 2,400 years ago.
Maiden Castle Stargazing
On 14th February 2022, we climbed up Maiden Castle to stargaze from the top, with young people from the Army Welfare Service in Blandford.
As the hillfort is high up and slightly away from city lights, it is an excellent spot for stargazing! We used binoculars, a telescope and our simply our eyes to explore the sky – spotting constellations, planets and deep sky objects. One of our favourite moments was looking at the moon through the telescope! The Iron Age people would have seen the same stars in the sky, so we considered what they might have thought about the stars and what constellations they might have drawn.
