Excavations at Sheffield Castle in February 2025 unearthed the first ever surviving examples of 17th-century Civil War defensive stakes in the castle’s moat. Known as 'abatis', these 3.2 feet (1m) wooden stakes had ends shaped to a point and were found driven into the silt at a deadly angle.

Ashley Tuck, the lead archaeologist on the dig, said that previously only the shadows of where the stakes had once been had been found. “To be able to hold the very wood to which the defenders of Sheffield Castle trusted their lives is extraordinary,” he added.

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