I should also add there are also these other Maiden Castles

Here I have a list of over 2 dozen sites, in the form of a glossary  many of which are in Britain, I start with the longest article / paragraph, on the only other "Maiden Castle" I have been to, but then the rest are much shorter mentions on examples of the many other Maiden Castles.

I did write this list, in 2020-2022, but in February 2022 saw a website, that had a much better list even than mine, http://www.snsbi.org.uk/Nomina_articles/Nomina_29_Coates1.pdf  So I have added to my list it via that. I should add I already had most of these sites on my list before seeing the Coates paper, and also there are a few on my list that are not on it, some a bit off subject, and some like at Uley Bury that are  truly relevant to hillforts. But that Coates list is more well researched than mine, with so much learning the fellow like many others has a right to have proper original theories as he does, while I have not researched in depthly, so much so in mine I have to parrot various other's remarks in the main, which is OK. I mean I do have some original thoughts here, and I can make some judgements, but only some. The writer of that Coates paper was more in depth than me, and knows more about this Maiden Castle name than me, but I still like the Hardy idea of  Mai Dun, being the origin for the name Maiden Castle better, as of the ancientness, and some broad links to history associated to the theory.  

So here goes my list, which I  have mostly found by my research. 

• Maiden Castle, Cheshire. Another one I have been to. I travelled via my sat nav, to western Cheshire, and saw the general landscape, it was a area of trees, and fields, cows, villages, roads footpaths and such, plus the odd dog and walker. I reached Bickerton where it is, and Pool Lane where I parked. Then from here I walked to the top of Bickerton Hill, which from where you see a nice view of the hills of North Wales, and it's plains, and plains of Cheshire. The area is sandstone, as could well be seen from the sandy paths up there. It took barely a few minutes from the car park, and what I saw was a semi circle of a fort, that used a cliff, like Dun Aengus in Ireland does across what is now for it seascape, to look across the still as it was then landscape of the Cheshire plains. It is a example of a number of such fortified sites on the sandstone ridge that holds most of the county's hillforts. It sits on a hill 214 metres above "sea level", The area is covered in heath, and in fact I saw cows there, and ate some lovely blackberries in the fort, first time I have eaten nature's bounty there from a hillfort. Iron Age pottery has been found there. As a extra little fact I found, apparently it used to even be called Maiden Tower in 1710, I got that from  http://www.snsbi.org.uk/Nomina_articles/Nomina_29_Coates1.pdf .  This is the only  Maiden Castle other  than Edinburgh Castle, I have been in. So Maiden Castle, Cheshire, is an Iron Age hill fort. It is among the most significant in fame,  maybe not so size, at 0.7 hectares I believe, of the other Maiden Castle sites in Britain. Other than the key one, that is Dorset's great hill. There is a local myth that the site was used by women of the area., when Welsh raiders, arrived, when the men were away. I mean it is close to the Welsh border, and there were in those days raids and invasions against each other, unlike our beautiful peaceful times of today. Though that does sound, with men as well, what many claim hillforts were partly for in the Iron Age. 

• Verterae, also known as Maiden Castle, Cumbria, a Roman fortlet in East Cumbria, near Brough, and Stainmore. Some wonder if it is referenced in the 13th Century as a similar named site. I considered driving here, but as it is at least twice the distance south east from Penrith as Ullswater, I thought it is too far out of the way for now, for my long drive on the M6, though it would be good to see. I saw the hills far away and they hem in a wide valley for north Britain terms. 

• There is another Maiden Castle a Iron Age farmstead, near Penrith and Bennethead, about 65 metres in diameter, not a hillfort, on Ullswater Way. it's also in Cumbria. I think it is the one on the Richard Coates article listed as near Watermillock, which is near Penrith in a sense.  It is also called Caer Thannock, a British origin name. I have been by Dunmallet which is less than a hours walk from here I would guess, for a fit person, but only saw the forests hiding where this fortlet is, from the lake known as Ullswater. The fortlet sits on hills overlooking the Ullswater. It is so close to Penrith, less than 20 minutes drive on a good day, that it sounds like Coates reason for the names may be right, I mean it was part of that 1140s Scottish empire centred on Carlilse. 

• There is another site it seems called Maiden Castle, again in Cumbria. It is near Kirkby Thore, where there is a Roman Fort of Bravonicum, and the MC name is for a area at Low Abbey by this area. There are a number of sites labelled castles round here, which some give as the reason why this township area's fields or something got the name. These including the Maborough Castle, which is labelled a "entrenchment", and just a field, I have never been there and dont know what that is, but some see the term Maborough as similar to Maiden Castle as in Mab and burgh. I believe they are saying it is not a actual Norman castle, and more something lesser. It seems quite related to Whelp Castle, a site to the west, which when it apparently existed was a ruins, whose remains were used to build other buildings, in the 15th Century, like Kirkby Thore Hall, so very little remained even in the 18th Century,  and Whelp Castle itself was made from Roman fort ruins in the 12th century -13th Century according to legend.  I did drive to Kirkby Thore, and had a energy drink and a walk there, but this site is a few KM north east of where I walked. I did see in the distance the hills, which have the white mark on the landscape the Great Dun Fell Radar station along with British army training areas, which is a cool thing to see even from about 6 KM away, I mean thats something cool. You can see it when driving along the M6 past Penrith, I always wondered what it was.  The hill it is on, which dominates in parallel the view to the east on the motorway known as the M6 is the second highest in the Pennines at 893 metres, well it and Cross Fell, which is what is part of as the among the lower peaks of it. The village does have a feel like a former Roman village of Caerwent, in how there are dispersed streets of nice looking houses of good stone, but no big Roman walls, unlike Caerwent. I did not see the Medieval Manor house known as Kirkby Thore Hall, which shows it is  close together as a village but quite dispersed, probably using the old Roman design, and stone. I dont know why it is called Dun Fell, I mean I cant see anybody mentioning there is a fort there, Oh well. The closest I can see is a high up Greencastle that some speculate as Roman or Iron age mining workings. And some as a Romano-British settlement, I mean if it was a fort it would be among the highest in Britain, but the lack of mentions indicates it was just a mining camp, and not a hillfort. It come up under Dunfell, and Green castle. So a strange one there. 

• Plus a Roman Road called Maiden Way, linking from the Roman fort in Cumbria of the Maiden Castle name. It is also called Maidenway and even archaically Mayden way. Though some call this not so archaic. It seems most feel the name stems from the last of the fact its links to the Stainmore Maiden Castle, though it also passes Kirkby Thore. There are speculations with some estimates that the road or route used to continue  to near modern Tebay in Cumbria, which is on the motorway north and south, and possibly even to Roman sites at York. (There is also another Cumbrian Maiden Castle below). When I drove to Kirkby Thore I drove to the start of the road and walked a few metres there, so I could say I have been on it. I did not have time for more, but the Roman bit becomes more a 1 lane road, off the 2 lane road at Kirkby Thore. So I did not fancy driving down it.  All I did was walk in nearby bits which had rabbits and hedgerows, and little birds, reminded me of Peter Rabbit, which is based on a village only 35 miles from here, so makes sense. As a former Roman fort this village Kirkby Thore still has Roman pottery and items dug up every so often. Some put the name Maiden Way, as a name stemming from a route called Maydengathe Maidingate or Maidengate mentioned by Camden, or a souurce before him from 1179 or 1294, so still after the Scottish empire in Northern England, could have originated the name. Though the road is older than that. and head up to Hadrians Wall. Which is why I think how it crosses a British army training area is a cool military link. The way was apparently built for Roman mining as well, and surely would have been used by later Britons, and people today even me. I can not remember the argument the Maiden name, for the route may be very new, but I will trust the Camden view. The route is actually at points the highest or second highest Roman route known in England. Though the fact there are so many Maiden Castles around here does tie in with the Coates argument. 

• Apparently there is also a uncertain feature near Penrith called Maiden Castle according to Coates. Its maybe just a bit of a field, I mean who knows what was there, maybe a stone in the past. But thats 4 Maiden Castles in the area of Penrith, plus the road, on some small UK outline maps, that would be just one dot covering the 4 sites plus southern start of that road, barely half way at the edge to Carlisle, or the western coast.  So very close really, all tying in with the Scottish origin. 

• There is also Maiden Castle Cairn not a fort, a likely Neolithic or Bronze Age one, in Cumbria's Eskdale. A bit to the west of the Penrith centred area, but still not far. 

• Maiden Castle, Durham, an Iron Age promontory fort. Research indicates it was Iron Age. With across the river, a Maiden Castle motte, very largely denuded, in Old Durham. The hillfort itself has a few things named after it in the area, and the motte surely from the Medieval era, is surely named after it, you would guess, though my research has not checked if it is that way around. Durham was also part of that brief Scottish expansion. 

• Maiden Castle, North Yorkshire, an Iron Age settlement, near Grinton. I believe it is in the region of where Swaldedale is. It looks from pictures a proper little site. Apparently it is only 6 miles from the Tees, the extreme southern border of Scottish expansion. And some have wondered if Cumbric speakers lasting to then, or descendants of them, may have had no problem allying to Cumbric Strathclyde's heirs. 

• Maiden Castle, on Dunniface Hill, also known as Kennoway Motte, it is a Medieval motte in Fife. I read in a book on Google's archive of books, a mid 19th Century one about Fife, "Handy Book of the Fife Coast", that it was once called the Mai-Dun.  There was even a tale it was Kennoway Castle, and a tale that it was associated to MacDuff who featured in MacBeth, It is even called the Castle of Kennoway and in the 16th Century Maydyn Castle. Some apparently have like for many sites associated legends of maidens to it, which many experts see as lovely miss interpretations of the name, even if many of those legends are quite old by now. It is also in the parish of Markinch / Dalginch. 

• Maiden Castle, Bracks, in the Lomond Hills, simply classified as prehistoric, also in Fife. The Lomond Hills, not to be confused with Loch Lomond which sits about 70 miles or so to the west, on the west side of Scotland. So these Lomond Hills, sit on the west of the county, what some for some reason call the Kingdom of Fife, which of course is on the east side of Scotland, and they are the highest points of Fife. Indeed West Lomond, the highest of it's hills, is about a couple or a few km to the west of the hillfort. With the village of Falkland that distance again to the east of this fort. Bracks seems to be a place a name for a general rural area, that is listed as close to Falkland, Which itself has just over a thousand one hundred people in 2021. The hills have 2 summits, and this fort is on neither, just on a lower grassy knoll in between these 2 main summits. So the fort itself is not the highest point of these hills or Fife, but it is rare fort for Scotland, where that it is one that sits somewhere on a distinct localised geographic feature that is the highest in it's county.   As a other extra little fact apparently it used to be called or it was referred to as Madincastle in 1662, I  saw that fact on http://www.snsbi.org.uk/Nomina_articles/Nomina_29_Coates1.pdf 

• Just like Cumbria, Fife has lots of Maiden Castle sites. Maiden Castle at Collessie, in Fife is another site, but most say this area was not given the name till the 19th Century and it was likely a more recent stock enclosure, not a hillfort. It also had a nearby twin of a site called Agabatha. 

• There is also a Maiden Castle, in Northumberland, known as the Ketties, Greenside Camp, and Cauterdale. Likely Pre-Roman. There is some thinking that it is also a fort talked of in Northumberland called Maiden Camp, or even the Maiden Camp of Wallis. It sits in the Cheviots. If the latter name is true, it may also be the reason a well nearby may also be called the Maiden well. But that may be a spurious guess. 

• There is also a Maiden Castle, in Swansea's area, known also as Oxwich Point, A kind of fort again there. 

• Also in South Wales, there is Maiden Castle, in Treffgarne, Pembrokeshire, the name of some rocks, above a fort, certainly the name does not refer to a fort. 

• There is also a Maiden Castle in Aberdeenshire, near Pittodrie Home Farm  Some dating has put some walls at 410 AD to 640 so a Pictish fort, or even Pictish Camp. It seems it has a Maiden's Causeway that leads from the fort area to Bennachie and Mither Tap. It seems this trackway may be ancient indeed, not just medieval, but likely older. There is a myth about a maiden to do with this, and some typically tragic tale that you get in old local myths, but could it just be the Brythonic route name of these Maiden's castles, turned into a legend that explained the name. Then again some may imagine it is a name added by later antiquries or such. The 9th Century  10 foot high maiden stone also sits not many miles from this location as well, in Gairoch, a carved Pictish stone. Though the causeway may be named after the stone, actually as the stone is as strongly associated to the legend, also known as Drumdurno stone. I have not researched well enough to know if the Causeway, stone, or fort were called it first I am sure many have, 
  I think some call it Oyne Maiden Castle Fort, as Oyne is it's parish, and a place called Gairoch is nearby as well. The nearest larger town is Inverurie, a few miles to the east. It had ramparts and radiocarbon dates from the Picts of the 6th Century, in those ramparts. Some have found a quarry there, from those times or later, and some even wondered if it was just a quarry, but others see a fortification site here, and excavators have proven it.  It sits on the North East of Bennachie, a major formation in Aberdeenshire, which also has Mither Tap as a summit on it, and plenty of legends more associated to it. Well back to the Maiden Castle,  Archaeologists found a 1000 year old glass bead here is excavations, and a cobbled roadway.  
  There is yet another identifier which is the location of Insch, some call it it with that name after as well, for this Pictish fort.  All these different identifying names for the fort made me think it was 2 different forts being referred to, its only when I checked I discovered it was the same fort. 

• Plus a Maiden Castle kind of hillfort in Angus, north east of Arbroath, at East Seaton, also called a promontory fort. It was called Maiden Castle as early as 1899. 

• There is also a Maiden Castle kind of earthwork in Midlothian so not far from Edinburgh. This site is at Lasswade, not far from Roslin, some wonder if it was a motte and bailey rather than a earlier hillfort. The Coates article refers to this being it's name since at least 1845. It is on the atlas of hillforts, unlike most motte and baileys, because later quarrying and such have deformed it so it is uncertain if it may be of any date, like older even than the Normans, but it is hard to decide. It uses a meander in Midlothian's Esk. 

• In North Yorkshire into West Yorkshire not far from Leeds, there are also the Aberford Dykes, and they include a fortifications called Becca Banks or the Ridge that ran for 3 miles. Some wonder if it was built to protect off Roman or Dark Ages attacks. The site near Saxton, Becca Banks, is among those that some experts claim is what was previously in the 12th Century recorded as being labelled as Maidencastell. The Aberford dykes are regarded as 3 dykes, Becca Banks/ The Ridge, The South Dyke and Woodhouse Moor Rein. The main one, Becca Banks runs 3 miles, on the north of the Cock Beck Valley. 
  Radiocarbon date points to some being from possibly the Roman era, or just before, though some wonder if it was a post Roman British link of fortifications against the Anglo-Saxons. Whatever the case, it was within the area of Elmet when it was one of the later "British" kingdoms in the Saxon takings of Northern England. Today some of it still parts of parish boundaries. A 1175 or 1186 source states, latus cujusdam montis qui vocatur Maidanecastell. Though this is in the West Riding, is it possible the 12th Century Scottish empire, affected here, it seems unlikely, though its people may have been some of the later Cumbric speakers of Yorkshire, in the last couple of centuries. 

• There is also a hillfort called Uley Bury in the Cotswolds, in Gloucestershire,  in fact, it is a Iron Age fort, that was supposedly never conquered, according local myths. It actually used to be called Maiden Hill. It has 2 lines of ramparts, Some say it was thus called as of never being conquered or rather taken, so you know like I mean, a maiden would not be a name you give for a married woman, that kind of thing, as in untaken. So all sorts of legends can develop around the name maiden.  

• There is also a Maiden Castle in in Glendevon, Perthshire.  Also known as Maiden's Castle. Unlike the locations above, there is actually no sign of a hillfort or castle here. Some wonder if it comes from a miss transliteration from Gaelic. Though there were folktales aplenty about this hill, and in one folktale a castle appears on this hill. 

• Also near Falkirk, formerly Stirlingshire,  by a area in the old Antonine Wall, there was a area known as Maiden Castle. It was supposedly about a motte, that is of a undefined age according to Coates. Apparently it was destroyed in the 1890s.

• Also in East Dunbartonshire, there is a motte, known as as Maiden Castle, near Campsie, it is probably 12th or 13th century AD.  

• Plus Maiden Castle, the big one in Dorset has a number of Bronze Age barrows and such nearby. Including the longest known barrow of the time in Britain. Namely Maiden Castle Bank Barrow, which at 546 metres long goes over Maiden Castle, and is barely visible today. It is labelled as Neolithic and Bronze Age. There is also Maiden Castle Long Barrow, with it 27 by 9 metres in size and half a metre tall according to 1980 estimates which was less than 1955 estimates very close to the fort. Then there is the  Maiden Castle Bronze Age Barrow cemetery which includes a 55 metres diameter 3 point 5 metres high barrow, and some smaller ones, which are it seems grouped round a now flat Neolithic barrow. Plus there is a  Maiden Castle linear earthwork, which tries to avoid certain barrows, and has been flattened in many parts by ploughing, so now is best seen by aerial archaeology, and most guesses say it is likely Bronze or Iron Age. It seems to have included a ditch and bank with the marks stretching as much as 540 yards long. 20th century investigators saw it as being measured, at 18 feet wide, and 1 and a half feet high, with a ditch 6 metres wide, and 0.2 metres deep. Whether it was a dyke a geographical marker or whatever, I am just guessing there. Ploughing had been affecting the site overtime.  

• Maiden Castle Causewayed Enclosure is a Neolithic site that sits under Maiden Castle, Wessex, the Dorset one, the Iron Age site, and is among the largest in Britain. It reached 8 hectares. It is likely from 3500 BC roughly. 

• There is also a Maiden Castle in Iran, also known as Ghal'eh Dokhtar

• Also, Kızkalesi Castle, in Turkey, off Mersin Province, on a islet, is known as Maiden's Castle, also known as Deniz kalesi. 

• There is also a Maiden's Castle a ruin in the ancient and abandoned city of Merv in Central Asia. Turkmenistan in fact. It is 8th or 9th Century and is also known as Great Kyz Kala, and looks amazing. 

• Edinburgh Castle used to be known as Maiden's Castle, or rather Mayden Castle, this was the spelling in in the 16th Century, Indeed sources claim it had this name for centuries afore then. A source called Maiden Castle in Dorset, that Mayden spelling in the 1600s. Amazingly the reasoning of why the capital of Scotland's castle has that older name rarely mentions it's Dorset sister, but maybe there is a good reason for that, I don't know the language situation, was the Celtic of Edinburgh different to the Celtic of Dorset? Anyway, thats a possibility of the Edinburgh name. I say, but it is better to listen to the even more learned experts on that I say. There is some scholarly debate about what proof there is that the Maiden Castle name was used for this site earlier than the 12th Century, but I feel that is something I can only parrot experts on. I prefer the idea it stems from  a Celtic name, Mai Dun, than that the term was a 12th Century Medieval fellow's  invention, but that is highly debatable. Of course the legend even of a long time ago, about why it had the name Maiden, in this case was to do with a bevvy of maidens living there long before, and also variously nuns. Even in this sense, you could maybe call it the 3rd Maiden Castle I have been to. 

• There is also a 549 metre hill called Devin, in the south east of the Czech Republic, in the Pavlov hills of Moravia (The Czech Republic consists of Bohemia, Moravia, and the Czech bit of Silesia). This is not the same as the hill of the same name between Austria and Slovakia on the Danube. So this Czech hill, was referred to as Mayden's Berg, in German. It interestingly has a large Iron Age hillfort atop it. The term is very close to Maiden Castle in German, I mean the term then may have a similar history or root meaning then. Now a part that may be very uninteresting to some people, but I found it uncanny. So I write as much of my own stuff as possible, but so I do not fake it I am saying what I said on wikipedia, for this little bit here. I read on Wikipedia that the word Devin has this explanation. The name for the great Slovak castle, is maybe derived from an ancient Indo-European/Proto-Slavic stem *deiv- with apophony *doiv- related to light & also visual perception. Devín, Divín, Devinka, Divino, Dzivín, plus similar Slavic terms can be sometimes be interpreted as watchtowers or observation points. That same same root related to vision can be found also in the word div (evil spirit) thus meaning "the place of evil spirits". Though and this is what I at hillforts.co.uk find most interestingly about what was said on wikipedia in 2021 (not sure how long that entry will last, but it was then, perhaps not always) , The Annales Fuldenses explained the name from the Slavic word deva—a girl ("Dowina, id est puella"). In this case, devin grad means "castle of the girl. Now that is fascinating, as a girl, and a maiden are terms that can be used at times, though not all times, interchangeably.  Now that finishes my bit of just overtly looking at what was said on wikipedia, now back to my own as original as I can be, writing.  I mean yes the term Maiden Castle likely came from a Celtic term, Mai Dun, and was misinterpreted, like happened for a lot of old British terms when the Saxons arrived, as Maiden Castle, but maybe the German term Maiden Berg also came from it, as there used to be Celts in this area, and perhaps the Slavs and Germans somehow, if it makes sense with the timeline maybe it does not brought their names from there. Though I don't know, at all really. I mean Maiden in German is Madchen, so I have no idea really. :Though it is also known as the Maidberg, and Divci hrady, hrady is castle berg is a mountain, so it is quite close in  a way to those terms, so maybe my thinking is right, or totally wrong. Also I see from looking up this a bit more, too much really, that Maiden was used with the term magd, in medieval German, so maybe my theory is correct after all. I came up with that theory before reading the Coates paper. Ok, one last footnote bit on there, the names Maidenberg, and Maydenberg are actually surnames used by a lot of    people in Europe and the USA. Plus there is a wine from the Czech Republic called Reisten Maidenburg Pinot Blanc, from the  Moravia region of course. 
  There is also a city in Germany called Magdeburg, so similar huh.
  As I say, back to my own as original as I can make it, or try to make it,  writing, as I try to make the case for as much as possible for this article, this page, and this whole website. Though maybe I should add, if Devin Castle on the Hungary, Slovakia, Austria border, which sits on the Danube, has a term that comes from Mai Dun, then it could be the 4th such Maiden Castle I have been to in a way.

• Also, so, also plus a area called Maidencastle in Northampton exists, it must be a part of the town in Northamptonshire. 

• There is also a Maiden Castle footbridge in 2021 anyway, over the River Tyne in County Durham. It was constructed in 1974.

• Plus not coincidently in Durham, there is a Maiden Castle stadium, where Durham Women football team play, plus where Newcastle United used to train with for instance their 1990s greats. I can not see if Sunderland or Middlesbrough ever played there, Maybe their reserves did. 

• Plus a Maiden Castle Wood, is nearby, in Durham, it must all be associated to that earlier mentioned Durham Maiden Castle Iron Age site.   

• Plus Maydes Castle, in Aston-Sub-edge, Gloucestershire, it refers to cultivation terraces, another name is the Lynches.

• There was even a horse that won a race meeting at Wolverhampton in the year 2020, by the name of Maiden Castle. This out of 13 riders at 12 to 1, but it had by no means won every race, indeed it was 13th out of 16th in one race at Sandown the same year. I just read that on the internet, and if you want to make sure of those stats I state there, do your own research to check if I am right. I am most definitely not a site that knows about horse racings finishes, so do not categorically state that, all I know is what I read on the web, I  also do not support betting though, and make sure to discourage myself from ever doing gambling, I do not recommend gambling. Though I do not want to be too Puritanical about it. Though I do feel horse races look beautiful as a concept I make sure I do not gamble. Interestingly it was a male horse. 

• There is also a Maiden Castle hill in Antarctica, it hits 1796 metres high. Surely the highest of these Maiden Castles I know of.

• Also, and skip this one if you are very young, if you like, there is a castle in Picardy, France, at Peronne, which was called, the "La Pueclle", and avert your eyes younger readers, for this word, that means "The Virgin". Which some definitions of the word maiden would have links with. But it was as the site was so impregnable. 

• In London, there was a site called Maiden Hill, that was a circular mound, likely a barrow, on a hill, but it was levelled in the 19th to 20th Century.

• There is a hill in West Lothian called Maiden Hill, all I read of it is that it is a hill. Plus such a site in South Lanarkshire. Again just a hill.

• Plus a site near Newton Mearns, called Maidenhill. It's in East Renfrewshire. 

• Plus there is a such not that I can see, fort stationed, so no fort, hill called Maiden's hill in Cumbria, near Wigton.

• Plus a nine Maiden's hill in Aberdeenshire.

• Plus lastly for these there is a Maiden Pap, a hill, in Caithness, which is almost a Marilyn. Apparently it can seen according to some from the Orkney Islands. 

• Plus there were a number of places in Medieval England called Maidenburgh, Maidenbury and such as Coates says, a more Saxon version of Maiden Castle, such as a lost place in Cambridgeshire, though they do not really correlate as he says, to hillforts. (One was mentioned as a meeting point, for some event, long before 1066, in England). Some wonder if Melbourn Bury was the Mayd (en)  Bury, also in Cambridheshire, also mentioned in old texts.  You can skip the rest of this paragraph, if you want to see more Maiden Castles, or read it if you want to see my thinking on the Coates theory ( Which he sees as correlating to his interpretation of the reason for why the name proliferated, he says it is as of Geoffrey of Monmouth's writings in the Middle Ages, and people naming sits after their name for Edinburgh Castle and such. A highly reasoned and interesting theory. But I prefer the more common idea it stems from Celtic terms handed down from the Dark Ages as Hardy the writer states. Then again Caer Caradoc was a name certainly placed on sites at later dates, than the Roman era, so maybe some of the Maiden Castles were as well, but I say many, most or all, were from the Thomas Hardy supported theory of Mai Dun.  Whatever the case, and more so if it was a term of Celtic origin, maybe there are more sites that used to be called Mai Dun, that now are not, or even were named after other Maiden Castles, and lost that term to something else. Or perhaps some of these sites had other names like how Caer Caradoc used to be called Caer. I prefer the former theory. My defence of it, would be the existence of Cheshire's Maiden Tower, Maiden Hill at Uley Bury, the Czech one, and Maiden roads, the Way and the Causeway. I notice a lot of the Maiden Castle sites are in the areas where Brythonic languages may have survived to later in the period of Anglo Saxon England, and in cases the  Normans, or afterwards. Or where Cumbric may have survived quite nearby well past when the Normans were in Northern England, and their lineages were also in the Kingdom of Scotland, and it's complicated story, of Bythonic, to Gaelic to English in Central Scotland. . I mean even Dorset was only taken by the Anglo Saxons at the end of the 7th Century.  Then I would also say not the areas which stayed speaking Brythonic languages past 1500.  Kind of like a version of the Fosse Way divide, but with Dorset included in this case to the west.  And with a extra divide that being where the Celtic "fringe" lasted longest, with Goidelic Gaelic, and Brythonic Cornish, Manx,  and Welsh, west of there to the 18th Century and beyond, there are less Maiden Castles being there. As even look at the Maiden Castle in West Yorkshire, it is within Elmet's territory which was a later laster of Celtic kingdoms in North Eastern England, and Yorkshire, lasting to 627. I think there are hardly any Maiden Castles outside of this later Dark Ages  to early Norman times, in betweeny zone between English or Bythonic tongues. (at times in that period some of these areas had become more Anglified in language, while some took a long time to so)  Durham's Maiden Castle is in a area which was taken by Saxon kingdoms in the mid 6th Century, so quite early, but Durham's county has a Celtic derived name, unusual for Eastern English places as did early Saxon kingdoms there. Plus on a map of Britain, Durham is a little more Celtic in terms of dot maps of the origins of names for places than England's more southerly eastern seaboard counties. Then for the one in Aberdeenshire, I think it would have turned from Pictish to Gaelic speaking in this in betweeny time, with the area Scots English speaking at a later date, if that also had a impact on the name. I have no information to say how long it's name has been around,  I read the Maiden Stone, or Maiden Stane was noted as such from a old legend by a folklorist in 1885.               Also he really has a point with how the word castle is not a Saxon word that hillforts use, but is more used at later times, that to me just could be minor. I mean many English forts do not have "Burgh", after them, and some no burgh, but yes to castle, so maybe it is just the term Castle was added to these Mai Dun sites, as it was only just before the Normans, that it felt necessary to add the word castle, as before Mai Dun was even accepted by Saxons as a term for a fort. I also think the fact there are surnames that sound like Maidenbury may indicate there were place names aplenty of that names in the Saxon period, they were just replaced, it could be, I gander. Then again doing detective work on things so long ago is fraught with difficulties especially as I do not speak the ancient languages or have the desire to learn, so I will leave that to others. But it is a great theory of Coates, and I should not be too attached to either theory, so both may be right or wrong, or just one, or a little of both. So as I say I would prefer to believe the Hardy style theory is correct. Though then again as of my Scottish heritage, and Welsh heritage maybe it would be fun to think the Coates theory is more right. After all Geoffrey of Monmouth was Welsh, a Breton-Norman Welshman, so it would be fun to think a Welshman is the reason for all these Maiden Castles getting this name, maybe a bit petty but I can take that as a petty fellow/w. Then, the thinking that King David of Scotland, the titanic figure of Scottish state building of the 12th Century, who famously captured Northumberland, Westmorland and Cumberland in the 12th Century as of his position as King of Scots and Prince of Cumbria, and who had lands across England as a lord there, centred on Huntingdon, as of his and his English wife's connections to the English royal line, well yes he was a major figure of Britain, who some claimed had a title to the King of England as well (Though he did not), so maybe it makes sense his power spread such a name, on inspiration of Geoffrey of Monmouth giving Edinburgh Castle the name, and from there the name spreading. In fact he even had authority over St Davids in Wales, so a major figure. . Indeed look at Gloucestershire , it has those 2 seeming arrows in the heart of the Coates theory, the 2 Maiden sites there, but actually who was the guy in charge of Gloucester in the 12th Century. It was the powerful Earl of Gloucester a illegitimate son of the the king, and he was honoured by Geoffrey of Monmouth, so maybe the Maiden Castle name came from there, and could St Davids, also have had it's influences on Gloucestershire after all there were connections with this part of England, and Wales, them being so close. So maybe the Coates possibility has a chance, a effect of a powerful figure's political ways on Britain. Or it could just be the Hardy theory is right, I still plump for that as of that Czech hillfort, plus the Maiden Bower sites. Though that was mostly written before 2023 I think, in 2024 I found out that King David's childless son, was Earl of Chester, as David the Is wife was Matilda of Chester, and this Earl, he ruled Cheshire for a while, so maybe even the Cheshire example could have been part of the reason this Coates theory suggests, woah the plot thickens, or maybe clears. And you know, perhaps the South West England Maiden Castles, were part of Robert of Gloucester's lands, as this figure was a ally of David I, and Matilda, the rival claimant to the English throne, and he took lands in Dorset, in the war, so maybe that is it. In 2024, I kind of agree with the Coates theory. I mean he even took the nearby Isle of Portland in 1142.

•  Plus there was a Paisley, built, HMS Maiden Castle that served in the Royal Navy during World War Two. So a floating Maiden Castle. It had the important task of supporting convoys from 1944. After the war, sadly the ship was sunk in 1947 while serving in the Levant, with the tragic loss of at least 65 lives, of whom many were Jewish refugees, during the  conflict situation in the Holy Land, vis a vis the Palestinians and their numerous organisations, and the organisations of the soon to be declared (1948) State of Israel.  Meanwhile, the ship itself was refloated, and later served as the Empire Lifeguard till 1955. Of course as of the convention that ships, be called "she", well this is a rare "Maiden" castle, it is legitimate to call a she. 

• Plus lastly there is a Maiden Castle Road in Dorchester as you may expect, happily it leads from Dorchester to the fort itself. 

• There is also a fort called the Doon of May, in Dumfries and Galloway, not even 0.1 hectares in size. 

• Plus a hill fort,  Maids Moreton in Buckinghamshire, just 2.9 hectares. 

• There is also a hillfort called Friar's nose, near Kilmade Burn, in East Lothian. 

• There is even a 4.9 hectare Maiden Bower hillfort in Bedfordshire, near Dunstable. Not too far from the highest points in the county. Some call it a plateau fort. And many state, that the "Bower" could be a changed term from Bury, so a Castle. 

• There is also a Maidenbower in Crawley, a neighbourhood.

• There is also a chambered tomb called The Hoar Stone II also known as Maiden Bower, near Woodstock, which is near Steeple Barton, in Oxfordshire. Apparently in the mid 19th Century it was broken up by a farmer so now looks more like a cairn, a shame, as normally farmers are the best protectors for sites like this at times. Some sites refer to a ancient earthwork being nearby, but others indicate that the nearest hillfort is a few KM away. Though possibly the term earthwork was also used for tombs, it was also called Maiden Bowery, and was given romanticised reverence in 19th Century descriptions, as the site of a alleged ancient British altar. That must be it, earthwork is another term for many ancient sites, not just hillforts.  Apparently it was 8 foot high, and also labelled a cromlech, apparently hoar stone could mean hairstone or boundary marker and it is also labelled a cromlech. 

• Also in the Parish of Randwick, near Stroud, Gloucestershire, there is a site called Maiden Hill. This is among my fave on this list here right now. Which had been called Mawden Hill, as early as 1603, and Maiden Hills, it is a site described as having a ancient earthwork atop. I looked in vain on Atlas of Hillforts, but noticed they meant a different meaning of earthwork. It turns out there is a immense tremendous long barrow atop it, Randwick Long Barrow, stated as "remaining" it is 55 metres in longness, half a metre high, and 4 wide. The term remaining, is stating in this context that there used to be much more her, but overtime for various reasons some of the structure has gone. Which means it used to be even bigger and even more expansive.  It sits amid a wood. Spooky thought to some, as some fear forests, but tantalising and esoteric to me. Apparently there are "several" tumuli around it, and if you see, yes there are plenty more barrows up here as well. Plus a 255 metres away a ridge dyke Randwick  Cross Dyke, 200 metres long up there, so all this together could be like a hillfort to someone. I mean to a person in the Dark Ages, maybe when it was unforested this could be regarded as similar to similar to the lumpiness and ridges and bumps atop a hill of a hillfort. I mean who could forgive someone for assuming it was a fort, and maybe it was a significant site that defended, and or a refuge to some extent to escape up to for people from raiders, or maybe not, maybe its not that shape. So along with Uley Bury, a second GloucestersGl site that indicates towards the Mai Dun Hardy definition I say, 2 Maiden Hills, with earthworks atop. 

• Plus another Maiden Hill, in Gl, near Stonehouse,  another in Norfolk, another in Berkshire,

• Plus another Maiden Hill in Gloucestershire actually a Maiden Hill Farm, near Longborough, which is quite near a long barrow on a hill, and has been known as that since 1275 and earlier. I am unsure if possibly these other Maiden Hills, maybe had Celtic earthworks, of tumuli, and such, but that is all cool. 

• There is also a Maiden Hill field in Dorset, recorded 1837, just a couple of KM, from Weymouth, interestingly there is a hillfort, Chalbury Hillfort, barely a KM west of this field. It is all near Sutton Poyntz a area on the outskirts of the coastal resort of Weymouth. 

• Plus at the top of the great hillfort in Lothian, Traprain Law, which used to be called Dunpelder, in the Middle Ages. Well currently there is a Maiden Stone, a natural rock formation, which has split, which has some legend associated to certain things, ideas about people passing through it for fertility or just good luck, in some legend way.    

• Plus a wood  in Shropshire near Caer Caradoc, known as Maiden Hill Wood, since at least the 1840s. 

• For that matter, Cornwall, has the Nine Maidens row. Which is a stone row, which has a legend associated to sisters being turned very sadly to stone, it is the name for this Neolithic or Bronze Age monument. The Cornish name also mentions nine women Naw-Voz. 

• Additionally Cornwall also has the Merry Maidens, where 19 dancing maidens were punished apparently for this deed as of dancing on the Sabbath. It is another Neolithic monument, loads of stone rows and monuments have this kind of legend. This is actually a stone circle. 

• With also in Cornwall, the nine maidens of Boskednan, which is a similar Neolithic  or Bronze Age stone circle.  

• Across the county divide in Devon there are the 9 Maidens, in Dartmoor, a stone circle, it is Bronze Age.

• Additionally there is a Down in Cornwall, named Nine Maidens Down, which is a hill, that had 2 early Bronze Age stone circles atop it. 

• Plus there is a Maidenhead, a market town in Berkshire, that has also been a parliamentary constituency.

• So a lot of places have the word Maiden in them there then, quite a fact that. 

• In The Mull of Galloway at Kirkmaiden, South West Scotland. Their is a hillfort called Core Hill, but itself it the parish gets it's name from a Saint. Indeed actually the Mull of Galloway Enclosure, is within the parish as well. I mention it on another page, indeed the parish also has a broch and another fort, called Dunman Fort a Iron Age Hillfort. 

• There also some islands with the name Maiden in, such as one off Oban, on the Western coast of the Scottish Highlands, which has those legends about maidens to do with it, like some such hillforts.

• Plus a Maiden Island of Antigua and Barbuda.

• Plus a islet off Newfoundland, part of the Greenspond community.

• There are also the Maiden's off  country Antrim, in Northern Ireland. They being 2 islets and a small number of skerries.

• There is also a village in Herefordshire called Maiden Bradley.

• There was a castle in East Sussex, called Iden's Castle from the Middle Ages, and Middle Ages can be shortened to Ma, so Ma Iden Castle. It had links to someone who fought Jack Cade in 1450. 

• Also there are some women with the surname Castle, so they could be called Maiden Castle, like the painter Florence Castle of the 20th Century, or the dancer Irene Castle. You could have someone with the name Mai Den Castle. I don't see anybody called Encastle as a surname on the internet but if there were a lady again could be a Maid Encastle. 

• Or Maid E.N. Castle

• Or Maid E N C Astle

• Or even Ma Iden Castle 

• Or M Aid encastle could be a telegraph message, 

• Or last of those, Ma id Den castle, could be instructions to ID the lady coming to the place, 

• Also there is a word, encastle, a archaic term for incastle, which to incastle, or put a castle in a place. So if a young lady decides to put a castle somewhere, maybe a sand castle, or queen or princess on advise of her advisors, and self, then the debates going about the place may be,  Will the maid encastle ?',.

• Just to show there are near similar spellings there is a Malden Island in Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean. 

• Of course seeing it seems Maiden Castle was named after Mai Dun, not Maidens, perhaps it can also be compared to other forts with great in their name, in other languages. Such as the Gaer Fawr hillforts of Wales, and Caer Fawr.

• I at Hillforts.co.uk do wonder, if Mai Dun, was a pan Celtic term, used across much of Europe. I wonder if this almost our closest thing to a phonographic recording or even astonishingly a Tv interview with a Celtic peasant or warrior, of the term Mai Dun, being a Celtic term, lasting that we say today to now. Just as they would have pointed to the great fort, or hill, known as Mai Dun, we also say that as well, but in a different understanding. Was it used from North East Scotland, to Dorset, to Bohemia, well so many forts do not have that name so its hard to tell, maybe not, but maybe. Or if we can interpret the word Mai Dun, or all etymology terms, as a even a hyper Basho-like super minimalist mini mini folk tale rendering of lost times and their phrases, a kind of micro poem. 

And ​even if it is not a etymological mondagreen, there are some hillforts in England that stem from names a bit different, that changed over time, and Cornwall's Chun Castle, came from the Cornish Chi an Woon, so it does happen. In a way all hillforts names are Basho poems, maybe newer in origin than I thought, but some have a origin of very ancient times, close to their begining, in a sense I am sure. 

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• This page is about the Maiden Castle Hillfort, one of the most searched for hill fort realted terms, or hillforts related terms on the internet, so that is all the Maiden Castles I know of, but this is of the Maiden Castle in Dorset though. So finally in terms of Maiden Castle, that is all the info on and about Maiden Castle.