William's Den

The iron age fort at William's Den sits on a ridge above Brough with views that stretch across the Wolds. It's basically an ancient hillfort - think earthwork ramparts and a sense of what life looked like two thousand years ago when someone important enough decided this patch of East Yorkshire was worth defending.

Walking the perimeter takes about twenty minutes if you're moving steadily, longer if you stop to work out the layout and imagine the timber structures that would have stood here. The earthworks are still substantial enough to make sense of - you can see where the defences ran and get a genuine feel for the strategic position. Kids tend to enjoy clambering about on the slopes, though there's nothing interactive or visitor-friendly in the modern sense. It's just a field with humps and ditches, really, which sounds less romantic than it actually is when you're standing there.

Histor buffs will make a proper afternoon of it. Casual walkers might give it twenty minutes en route to somewhere else. The nearest town is Brough, which sits just below, so it's easy to combine with a broader explore of the area. If you're based at William's Den itself or at Little Wold Away Glamping just down the road, it's the sort of thing you'd do before lunch without overthinking it. Best on a clear day when the views actually reward the walk up. Go when the ground's dry - it gets boggy.