Ancient fort in Milton Keynes needs urgent protection from mountain bikers riding over it

A Conservative councillor is seeking urgent protect for an ancient fort monument in the heart of his ward.

The site of the 2,100-year-old fort is a popular haunt for mountain bikers and they are causing “serious erosion” of the land, says Cllr David Hopkins.

Signage and information/interpretation boards for the historic feature have also been removed over the years.

Danesborough Fort Scheduled Monument lies on the Greensand Ridge in Woburn Sands. It is about 800 feet long and 450 feet wide, and ramparts and ditches are still visible around three sides. The whole site covers around eight and a half acres.

Once it was a well-defended point in the hills overlooking the plain that the Romans built Watling Street across, close to their settlement at Magiovinium. Historians have suggested that it may have been anti-Roman tribesmen who built the fort.

It was first listed as a monument in 1933. An excavation had been carried out nine years earlier and numerous fragments of early iron age pottery were found.

Cllr Hopkins is concerned about its future, saying it is “under attack” by the mountain bikers, who are speeding over the grassy site, and he is this week urging MK City Council to facilitate some urgently-needed protection.

He is asking the council to get directly involved and call an immediate meeting with Bedford Estates and Greensand Trust, who manage the land on behalf of the Estate, to agree a way forward before the site is damaged permanently.