Close ny chollagh lies on the southern coast of the Isle of Man (fig. 1), about one mile south-west of Castletown, and is one of the group of Manx fortified coastal sites. It is not on a promontory, having land adjacent to it on two of its four sides, but the deep gully to the south combines with an artificial ditch along the rest of the landward side to make it a position of some strength.

When it was chosen for excavation in 1953 it was thought that the Manx promontory forts belonged to the Viking Age, and Close ny chollagh did indeed have a mediaeval level in which the principal building was a long-house of Scandinavian type. There was also, however, an Iron Age level, separated by a sterile layer from the later one, clearly demonstrating for the first time an Iron Age origin for one of the Manx promontory forts. It is to this Iron Age phase in the history of the fort that the present report is devoted.