Another step after near 20 years without the Castle Hill pub March 22, 2021

The old Castle Hill pub at the top of Castle Hill in January 2001The old pub in September 2003 after demolision had begunA plan for a new cafe bar and visitor building at the top of Castle Hill seems a step closer after a recent announcement that the scheme narrowly approved by Kirklees councillors will not be called in for a final decision by a Government minister.

The plan is to build a new visitor building in about the same position as the former Castle Hill pub which stood at the top of the hill 20 years ago and which had a history dating back around 90 years before the Victoria Jubilee Tower was completed in 1899.

However, even the pub was a relative newcomer to the historic site, which is a scheduled ancient monument with evidence of human habitation dating back more than 4,000 years.

The new planned building will appear from the distance as a being single-storey with windows around the restaurant/cafe/bar area, but there will be two more storeys across a wider area dug below ground. This will incorporate a visitor exhibition, guest rooms, toilets and a basement kitchen.

Early stages of the new hotel in March 2004 New stonework was in place by May 2004 before the order to stop the new buildingWe take a look back here at the end of the former Castle Hill pub and the subsequent building of a replacement hotel which was eventually ordered by Kirklees Council to be stopped because it was off-plan and lost all the features of the original building.

The building was pulled down and the site has remained grassed over now for more than 15 years.

A brief history of Castle Hill

The Castle Hill site is one of the most historic in the region. While the fine stone tower of Castle Hill is little more than 120 years old, the hilltop is possibly the most ancient fortified site of Yorkshire.

The hilltop, with its earthwork ramparts, is a scheduled ancient monument with evidence of human habitation dating back more than 4,000 years to the Bronze Age, around the end of the period when stone circles were arranged at Stonehenge in Wiltshire.

Archaeological investigations at Castle Hill suggest several periods of open and defended occupation.

The hilltop site as it has remained since the new hotel was demolished and site grassed overThe first defences were a single rampart around an enclosure. Around the beginning of the Iron Age, about 600BC, the hill top was turned into a fortlet with a pallisade fence and a ditch outside the rampart. Within a couple of generations the outer defences were extended to a second rampart and there were further rampart additions and strengthening for more than a century beyond that.

Archeological investigations by William J Varley from 1939 to 1972 suggest the Iron Age hill fort ended with a catastophic burning at a date around 431 BC, certainly long before Roman Britain.

The hill has a long gap in its history until the building of substantial new earthworks with a inner, middle and outer bailey in the mid-12th century. A castle at Almondbury is mentioned in a document of the period. It seems likely there was a wooden keep served by the two wells found there and that there was other occupation around the site until the 13th century.

Castle HillIt then appears to have been repurposed as a hunting lodge without the creation of a more substantial stone castle as happened in places elsewhere. The Manor of Almondbury was at the time a sub-manor of the Honour of Pontefract, which already had what was arguably Yorkshire's most imposing castle at Pontefract.

The hill's open public paths around the ramparts have boards explaining the history and there are commanding views from the hill across Huddersfield, the Pennine moors and local villages in the surrounding countryside.

The tower was completed in 1899 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee two years earlier and, for a small fee, is open to climb the steps to the top on some weekends and public holidays.

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