Grimsbury Castle | |
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![]() View of the eastern side | |
General information | |
Architectural style | Iron Age Hill Fort |
Town or city | Hermitage, Berkshire |
Country | England |
Coordinates | 51°26′50″N1°15′58″W / 51.4473°N 1.2660°W |
Elevation | 155 metres (509 ft) |
Technical details | |
Size | 3.2 hectares (7.9 acres) |
Official name | Grimsbury Castle |
Designated | 24 October 1968 |
Reference no. | 1006983 |
Grimsbury Castle is an Iron Age "multiple enclosure" Hill Fort comprising a large circular encampment on a high hill. It is within Grimsbury Wood, between Cold Ash and Hermitage, in the county of Berkshire.
The site benefits from a natural spring which reportedly has never been known to run dry. The entrenchment would appear to have been extended on the south side of the hill for the purpose of enclosing this spring. This rampart appears to have had only two entrances, one on the north and the other on the south side; just within the entrenchment, at the entrance on the north, is a small tumulus, which may have been constructed as a mount for observation or defense, or for the purpose of interment. [1]
The name shows that the later Saxon settlers in the region found the earthworks so impressive that they thought they must have been built by the chief of their gods, Woden alias Grim. [2]
The site lies at an elevation of 155m AOD. There is an 18th-century folly on the site, also known as Grimsbury Castle.
Today the site is crossed by a small, single-track roadway. It is a designated scheduled monument. [3]
Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hillfort 1.6 mi (2.6 km) southwest of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age.
Uffington Castle is an early Iron Age univallate hillfort in Oxfordshire, England. It covers about 3.2 ha and is surrounded by two earth banks separated by a ditch with an entrance in the western end. A second entrance in the eastern end was apparently blocked up a few centuries after it was built. The original defensive ditch was V-shaped with a small box rampart in front and a larger one behind it. Timber posts stood on the ramparts. Later the ditch was deepened and the extra material dumped on top of the ramparts to increase their size. A parapet wall of sarsen stones lined the top of the innermost rampart. It is very close to the Uffington White Horse on White Horse Hill.
The Vale of White Horse is a local government district of Oxfordshire in England. It was historically part of Berkshire. The area is commonly referred to as the 'Vale of the White Horse'. It is crossed by the Ridgeway National Trail in its far south, across the North Wessex Downs AONB at the junction of four counties. The northern boundary is defined by the River Thames. The name refers to Uffington White Horse, a prehistoric hill figure.
Hermitage is a village and civil parish, near Newbury, in the English county of Berkshire. The civil parish is made up of a number of settlements: Hermitage village, Little Hungerford and Wellhouse.
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Prideaux Castle is a multivallate Iron Age hillfort situated atop a 133 m (435 ft) high conical hill near the southern boundary of the parish of Luxulyan, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is also sometimes referred to as Prideaux Warren, Prideaux War-Ring, or Prideaux Hillfort. The site is a scheduled monument and so protected from unauthorised works by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.
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Caesar's Camp is an Iron Age hill fort around 2,400 years old. It is located just in Crowthorne civil parish to the south of Bracknell in the English county of Berkshire. It falls within the Windsor Forest and is well wooded, although parts of the fort have now been cleared of some trees. The area is managed by the Forestry Commission but owned by Crown Estate, and is open and accessible to the public. The hill fort covers an area of about 17.2 acres and is surrounded by a mile-long ditch, making it one of the largest in southern England.
Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hill fort, one of many fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age, but one of only seven in the county of Cheshire in northern England. The hill fort was probably occupied from its construction in 600 BC until the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD. At this time the Cornovii tribe are recorded to have occupied parts of the surrounding area but, because they left no distinctive pottery or metalworking, their occupation has not been verified. Since then it has been quarried and used for military exercises. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and is owned by the National Trust. The hill fort is open to visitors, but unrestricted access to the site has resulted in it being classified as "at high risk" from erosion.
Kelsborrow Castle is an Iron Age hill fort in Cheshire, northern England. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. It is one of only seven hill forts in the county of Cheshire and was probably in use for only a short time. In the 19th century, a bronze palstave was recovered from the site. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Blewburton Hill is the site of an Iron Age hillfort located in Oxfordshire, in the southeast of England. It was a univallate hillfort. The area is mostly farmland with some small areas of wooded copse to the south and the northeast. The hill fort may have been occupied from the 4th century BC to the 1st century BC, and replaced a small settlement surrounded by a stockade, which is estimated to have been built in the 5th or 6th century BC.
Bussock Camp is the site of an Iron Age bivallate hillfort located in Berkshire, England. It has a double bank and ditch to the south and east, with only a single bank remaining the north and western sides. The entrance is to the north of the site and is believed to be original, and the site encloses approximately 11 acres.
Castle Ditches is the site of an Iron Age trivallate hillfort in the south-east of Tisbury parish in Wiltshire, England.
Hillforts in Britain refers to the various hillforts within the island of Great Britain. Although the earliest such constructs fitting this description come from the Neolithic British Isles, with a few also dating to later Bronze Age Britain, British hillforts were primarily constructed during the British Iron Age. Some of these were apparently abandoned in the southern areas that were a part of Roman Britain, although at the same time, those areas of northern Britain that remained free from Roman occupation saw an increase in their construction. Some hillforts were reused in the Early Middle Ages, and in some rarer cases, into the Later Medieval period as well. By the early modern period, these had essentially all been abandoned, with many being excavated by archaeologists in the nineteenth century onward.
Membury Camp, or Membury Fort, is the site of an Iron Age hill fort located in England on the borders of Wiltshire and Berkshire counties,. The site encompasses 14 hectares, and is situated in the south-western corner of a small plateau. The circular earthworks are completely shrouded in trees and inside the walls it is mostly arable farmland. To the northeast, in the Berkshire segment, the camp is totally wooded by a small copse, Walls Copse, which covers a quarter of the site. To the north and east the adjoining ground is flat, but to the south and west it falls away steeply, providing a natural defence. The camp consists of a single ditch with banks on either side and encloses and area measuring 390m by 490m. A gap in the east with inturning flanks is probably an original entrance though it is mutilated and overgrown. Other gaps in the banks appear to be more modern. A possible hut circle is visible as a cropmark situated at the south end of the hill fort. The east side of the earthwork has been partly destroyed by the construction of a wartime airfield, RAF Membury. The site has not been excavated but a number of prehistoric finds have been found in the vicinity. It is a scheduled ancient monument no. 228970 There have been several collections of pottery found, in 1977, 1980 and 1987. Other significant finds have also included flint artefacts from the mesolithic era, and flint tools from the neolithic era, prior to the Iron Age.
Knook Castle is the site of an Iron Age univallate hillfort on Knook Down, near the village of Knook in Wiltshire, England, but largely within the civil parish of Upton Lovell. It has also been interpreted as a defensive cattle enclosure associated with nearby Romano-British settlements. It is roughly rectangular in plan with a single entrance on the south/south-east side, but with a later break in the wall on the western side. The site is a scheduled monument.
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