Out & About November 2017

OA feature

hill fort / noun a fort built on a hill, in particular an area on a hilltop enclosed by a system of defensive banks and ditches, as used by Iron Age peoples in NW Europe

Artist’s impression of Grimsbury Castle Mike Codd for West Berkshire Council

Artist’s impression of Walbury Camp Mike Codd for the former Berkshire County Council

T his article started because someone tweeted something about Grimsbury Castle near Hermitage and I confess I had never heard of it and thought they must have got their wires crossed. A swift Google told me that Grimsbury Castle is indeed in Hermitage and is one of at least seven hill forts surrounding Newbury. Although there is no ‘castle’ there as such, there is enough archaeological evidence to show the existence of an ancient hill fort. As a complete novice to all things Iron Age and this startling discovery that Rome may have its hills, but Newbury has its hill forts, I did a little metaphorical digging of my own and hope that for some readers at least this may be as new to Built in the Iron Age, 750BC to 43AD, hillforts were generally in defensible positions, but had a variety of uses, from settlements to food stores, refuges to meeting places and perhaps religious centres. Not necessarily exciting to the layman, it is the sheer scale of these momuments that makes them so impressive and the massive them as it was to me. What is a hill fort?

community effort that must have gone in to constructing them. They help historians and archaeologists to piece together an invaluable insight into the life and times of our forebears. Hill forts vary in size and shape, but are a definining part of the landscape. Some are merely fields where livestock were kept, while others cover vast acres, with undulating borders, shaping the high ramparts and deep trenches. The two most common type of hill forts are the contour fort – which has a bank and ditch dug along the contour line surrounding high ground and the promontory fort, where the fort is positioned on a spur of land that has its own natural defences. There are others as well, including those on flat land, where it is thought stock was kept. The forts could be univallate – ie one banked- and-ditched enclosure – to multivallate, with three or more banks. Whatever the style of the fort, it was defended by ramparts, which can be traced today along the banks and ditches that form its shape. The palisades that are likely to have been on the top of the banks no longer exist, but were

made of wood, stone or earth. It is thought they would have been constructed using picks and wooden spades, with baskets to transfer the rubble and soil. Amateur archaeologist Eric Wood estimated that it would have taken 150 men about four months to fortify an eight-acre enclosure with just one single bank and ditch. From various excavations, it seems that the Iron Age dwellers’ weapon of choice was the sling shot – a remarkably accurate and deadly weapon with a range of 200m to 350m. Other artefacts discovered in the hill fort areas, including razors, mirror fragments, pins and brooches – gives an insight into life during the Iron Age, up to the time of the Roman Invasion around 43AD. There are thought to be more than 3,000 hill forts in the British Isles, although they are not evenly distributed. The largest concentration is in the south and west, especially Wales. The significance of hill forts has led organisations to campaign for their preservation for posterity – the National Trust currently owns and maintains about 79 hill fort sites in the UK. Listed over are the seven significant sites around Newbury, only three of which are on public land. 

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