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Malmesbury, built on an Iron Age hill fort Malmesbury, a Saxon town in north Wiltshire famous for its historic Abbey and it connection with the first king of all England, Athelstan. I was in the Athelstan Museum earlier today and was fascinated to learn Malmesbury is built on the site of an early Iron Age hill fort. Was looking at a 3D model of town in the museum and it is almost surrounded by two rivers. A town where prehistory becomes the history of England - life before the Normans. Also known as the "Queen of Hilltop Towns".

Posted by tjj 9th February 2016ce

Comments (3)
I had a quick look and malmesbury is in the open data LIDAR dataset. I wasnt sure where/what the defenses of the hillfort would be though. More research required methinks!	Posted by juamei 10th February 2016ce
From reading the PDF link, the evidence was found under the town wall. There are no visible signs of a hill fort other than the hill Malmesbury sits on is almost surrounded by water so easy to see why it was such a good defensive spot. The town is probably the most beautiful in Wiltshire as still has Saxon buildings and is known as a Cotswold town.	Posted by tjj 10th February 2016ce
Ah yes. As expected nothing on the lidar, though you can clearly see the town wall in the street layout. https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map?ref=ST9337287185	Posted by juamei 10th February 2016ce
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