Tag Archive | Iron Age hillfort

Sunday stroll: Swallowcliffe

Apr3

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny spring Sunday, and we went for a walk in the countryside around the south Wiltshire village of Swallowcliffe.

The Church of St Peter, Swallowcliffe, built 1842-1843. There was a service going on so we didn’t go inside.

Everything’s gone green after a grey winter ….

Lichen on a shrub.

Beautiful blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) blossom: hopefully there’ll be a good sloe crop from these in the late summer.

(Slightly drunken shot) of a soggy willow plantation. The area is very damp, with many springs, so willows seem to be a popular choice of commercial timber round here.

Castle Ditches, an Iron Age hill fort, and beneath it Withyslade Farm.

Castle Ditches is an Iron Age hillfort. The Victoria County History of Wiltshire says of the site: ‘An Iron-Age hill fort was called Oakley Castle in the 14th century and later, its ditches and banks, enclosing 25 acres, were called Castle ditches in the 16th century, and the whole earthwork afterwards took the name Castle Ditches.’

A view from the public footpath of the boardwalk through the boggy gardens of Spilsbury Farm, complete with grab posts and marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris).

One of several man-made ponds in the area exploiting the stream and springs. You can just make out two swans, one of which (on the left) is bottoms-up, and the other (on the right) we think was nesting on the island.

We saw some brimstone and tortoisehell butterflies and heard a raven cronking in the distance. It was a joy to be out and about in the spring lusciousness and to see the sun again after such a drab winter.

Is it a ring, is it a hillfort?

Jan29

A vintage modernist moonstone and sterling silver ring:

Ring.

Ring.

Cadbury Castle, Somerset, an Iron Age hillfort, as drawn by William Stukeley, 15 August 1723:

v

Iron Age hillfort.

As an archaeologist, I tend to see archaeological-related shapes everywhere: the ripples in a pond are the conchoidal ripples on the ventral surface of a flint flake; the tarmac repair in a pavement over a service trench is a prehistoric ditch, waiting to be excavated; the fruit and nuts in Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut Chocolate are the inclusions in coarse Bronze Age pottery (okay, maybe I’m getting a bit carried away here …)

So it’s no great surprise I suppose that when I saw this ring, the first thing I thought of was the famous Stukeley engraving of Cadbury Castle (which he called Camalet Castle: it’s near the villages of West Camel and Queen Camel, and local tradition holds that it is the site of King Arthur’s Camelot). I have a copy hanging in my study and love it very much.

Cadbury Castle, just to the south of the A303. The enormous earthworks show up much better in the winter, when there is no foliage on the trees. 26 April 2009.

Cadbury Castle, photographed from the A303. The enormous earthworks show up much better in the winter, when there is no foliage on the trees.  As you can see, there is some artistic licence in the Stukeley version of this view … 26 April 2009.

I drive past Cadbury Castle frequently, as it is just to the south of the A303. I remember as a child being taken to the excavations there one summer when we were holidaying in the south-west, and the Iron Age body sherds were being sold for 3d a piece (I think it was) with a sign saying the proceeds would go to the diggers’ beer fund. I bought a couple of sherds and they were my treasured possessions for a long time. Until I lost them, and promptly forgot about them, as kids do.

It’s a great spot for a walk too, and always very empty of people. There is a terrific view of Glastonbury Tor from the hillfort.

Cadbury Castle. View from the top of the ramparts. 24 January 2010.

Cadbury Castle. View from the top of the ramparts (Glastonbury Tor sadly out of shot). 24 January 2010.

And as for the ring, it’s for sale in my Etsy shop.

UPDATE: 18 March 2015 – the ring has now sold. Sorry!

LATER UPDATE: This became the first in an occasional series on my blog, titled ‘Rings that remind me of things‘.

Sunday stroll: Cherhill

Sep29

Yesterday Chap and I headed north—most unusual for us (our hearts are in the south and west, and best of all the south-west). We visited the beautiful town of Malmesbury with its glorious abbey, founded in 675 AD, and then went on to Cherhill, a chalk downland hill near Calne. You can’t miss Cherhill: atop it sits the Lansdowne Monument, a 38 m (125 feet) high obelisk, and carved into the side of the hill is the famous Cherhill White Horse, one of several in the region. Cherhill is in the ownership of the National Trust, and is managed as part of the Avebury Estate.

Cherhill. Photo by MacFodder.

Cherhill. Photo by MacFodder.

Cherhill packs in an awful lot of history into its not-so-great size. On top of the hill sits the two thousand year old plus Iron Age hillfort of Oldbury. The massive earthworks enclose an area of 10.1 hectares (25 acres). The northern part of the fort has no bank and ditch as the steep slope of the side of the downland provides natural defence.

Aerial photo of Oldbury. The Lansdowne Monumnet is visible within the north-western part of the Iron Age hillfort. Photo by Google.

Aerial photo of Oldbury. The Lansdowne Monument is visible within the north-western part of the Iron Age hillfort. The White Horse is just out of shot at the top of the image area. Photo by Google.

The earthworks of the Iron Age hillfort.

The earthworks of the Iron Age hillfort.

The entrance to the interior of the hillfort through the earthworks, in the south-east part of the hillfort.

The entrance to the interior of the hillfort through the earthworks, in the east part of the hillfort.

On the north-facing slopes of the downland, and clearly visible from the A4, an old coaching road, is the Cherhill White Horse. This was constructed in 1780, the brainchild of Dr Christopher Alsop of Calne. Alsop was known as ‘The Mad Doctor’, and is reputed to have instructed the workers by shouting through a megaphone from the wonderfully-named Labour-in-Vain Hill. The horse was originally 50 m by 67 m (165 feet by 220 feet).

The construction method for a white horse is very simple—the thin turf and soil is removed from the underlying chalk bedrock. When first exposed, the chalk is a brilliant white, and so contrasts well with the surrounding turf. However, the chalk soon weathers, turning a greyish colour, sometimes a greeny-grey if algae grows on it, and weeds take hold. For this reason, hill-cut chalk figures (of which there are a good number in southern England) have to be regularly re-scoured or re-dressed with fresh chalk. As far as I can make out, it was last re-dressed in 2002.

View of a rather grubby looking Cherhill White Horse from just below the Lansdowne Monument.

View of a rather grubby looking Cherhill White Horse from just below the Lansdowne Monument.

Close to, it is so large that you can barely make it out as a horse. Needs a good clean!

Close to, it is so large and becomes so abstract that you can barely make it out as a horse. Needs a good clean!

Here it is in brighter days.

Here it is in brighter days. Photo by Dan Gabor.

The Lansdowne Monument was designed by Sir Charles Barry (he of the Houses of Parliament), and built in 1845 by Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne in memory of his ancestor Sir William Petty (1623-1687). Sir William was an economist, scientist and philosopher, and held the position of Surveyor General of Ireland in the 1660s. The Monument is 38 metres (125 feet) high, and is a Grade II* listed building.

The Lansdowne Monument. Photo by Lisa Hillier.

The Lansdowne Monument. Photo by Lisa Hillier in 2002.

The Monument is currently boarded up at its base for public safety: the Bath Stone quoins have been eroding away in the bad winter weather and large fragments of rock have dropped from it.

Slightly skewiff photo.

Slightly skewiff photo, but it shows the boarding at the base well.

Close to the Lansdowne Monument.

Close to the Lansdowne Monument.

A sad sign of the times: on the boarding was a notice by the National Trust saying it is not known when funding will be available to repair the Monument.

Even though it was an overcast day, the views from the hill to the north are wonderful.

Hambledon Hill

Aug16

I’m a few days late to the news that the National Trust has bought Hambledon Hill, an Iron Age hillfort in North Dorset, for £450,000, thereby securing its future, for ever, for everyone.

Hambledon Hill, Dorset.

Hambledon Hill, Dorset.

The ramparts of the Iron Age hillfort at Hambledon Hill.

The ramparts of the Iron Age hillfort at Hambledon Hill. Photo by David Squire.

I have a very soft spot for Hambledon Hill: it is where I went on my first proper archaeological dig, 35 years ago. Roger Mercer, then of Edinburgh University, was directing the excavation of part of the Neolithic causewayed enclosure on the hill. The causewayed enclosure is a barely-visible part of the earthworks on the hill: the much later hillfort banks and ditches are the best-preserved and most obvious features. I spent a month that summer hoeing and trowelling chalk in the interior of the enclosure (as a green volunteer I was not allowed near the one large archaeological feature—the enclosure ditch—that was being excavated by experienced archaeologists), and finds were few and far between, but I loved it—summer on the chalk downs, with larks singing overhead and independence for the first time in my teenage life. We camped in a field, washed using water from a tap over a cattle trough, and ate meals cooked by a lovely lady called Grace in the Iwerne Courtney village hall.

(The first ever dig I went on was a Sunday spent at a rescue excavation at a site in the area of the proposed Empingham Reservoir, in 1970 or 1971. The reservoir was later built, and renamed Rutland Water. Of course I was a child, so not a proper digger. I found a sherd that I was told was the best found that day. I rather suspect they were being kind to me, but I glowed, and wrote a ridiculously long essay about my archaeological triumph at school the next day. Until that point it had been a toss up between dinosaurs and archaeology. That sherd decided it for me, and set me on course for my career.)

I now live not too far from Hambledon, and Chap and I visit there every now and then. It’s a beautiful spot, and one full of very happy memories for me.