Sheep will soon be seen on the Old Oswestry Hillfort.

The new arrivals, who will come from a local farm, are part of the process of starting new stages of work on the Iron Age fortress which included a volunteer day yesterday (Tuesday).

One volunteer delighted with how people have responded to their call for help.

Neil Phillips, who is Oswestry Heritage Gateway’s volunteers co-ordinator, was joined at the iconic site by members of English Heritage, including Win Scutt, properties curator for the West region, and Helen Allen, site management for English Heritage.

They worked on light landscape management tasks, including clearing overgrowth around the ponds.

Neil admitted he was delighted to see a mix of people arrive at the hillfort on Tuesday, following a meeting of around 20 people at the Hermon Chapel the night before, where plans for the monument were set out.

“This clearing session is the start of the process,” he said.

“There’s only a small window for clearing the area around here. We have some concerns about ecological and archaeological issues here, so we have an ecologist on site.

“It’s still cold enough to start working before the Great Crested Newts start breeding. In fact we have all kinds of British newts here.

“People were coming to the hillfort at different times and we had around eight to 10 volunteers at any given time. We can’t have too many people on here from a health and safety point of view because we’ve got the contractors with the chainsaws and we also had the chipper too.

“This work is to introduce sheep, which are coming from a local farm, to the hillfort on the side adjacent to the pond area, and we have to get the fencing up for that.”

The plans were announced at an open evening at Oswestry’s Hermon Chapel on the Monday evening.

Mr Roberts: “It was a good turnout for the evening to hear our plans.

“Also, I was pleased to see Win and Helen here too as it shows they are willing to get out and help us.”

Helen, from English Heritage, added: “ We just want to say a big thank you tot he volunteers who have given their time to come and help.”

“It is brilliant to see them.”

For more on the group and the volunteers day, head to www.facebook.com and search for Oswestry Hillfort.