Banjo enclosures are one of the most distinctive types of enclosure known in the British landscape. The Walton common enclosure is a typical example, sub-circular in outline with a single elongated entrance passageway; this funnelled approach gives the ground plan the appearance of a banjo or frying pan.

 

They generally date from the Iron Age, between 800BC and the Roman conquest in AD43, and were most intensively used from about 100BC onwards.

 

When first identified, banjo enclosures were interpreted as stock corrals, with the long trackways being related to stock control and the main enclosure being for stock containment. But, excavated examples have produced evidence of intensive occupation within the central enclosure and many are now thought to be occupation sites, possibly even of considerable status.

 

This side of the enclosure is the rear. The gap in the earthworks is a comparatively recent entrance, probably post-Medieval. It passes over a ditch and bank. The arrangement here with a ditch on the outside and a bank on the inside is less common. It is more often the other way around.