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Hillfort
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Caesar's Camp Hillfort - Wimbledon Common - 7.8.2003
After Jamie (Juamei) had left me at the end of our day out I went off to Caesar’s Camp. The best place to park is just off Camp View around TQ229711, opposite the Club House for the Wimbledon Common Golf Course.
Then walk west towards a small split in the road, and walk past the sign that says “Camp Rd, leading to Kinsella Gardens, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development”. At the end of the tarmaced road (TQ225711), the footpath across the fort is directly in front of you. Unlike the egalitarian Wimbledon Common Golf Club to the North, this hillfort is on the private Royal Wimbledon Golf Club. Just as you enter this section there is the chance to officially trespass and explore the east side of the fort, by using the gates that leads to the greens/tees of several holes in the area. A badly broken large stone plaque lies unkempt inside this fence and says “…….[broken bit]…probably in the 3rd Century BC. The fort was surrounded by a circular earthwork, about 300 yards in diameter, two ramparts with a ditch between, it’s outline is difficult to follow but the footpath passes through the middle of the fort. Its easterly limit is marked by this stone, and its westerly limit by a post 300 yards along the footpath and inside the fence. Re-erected by the John Evelyn Society 19??” (looks like 1968 but can’t be certain).
Or before you enter the fenced in footpath you can also quite easily sneak down the track that leads south towards the centre of the golf course, and see the south east side of the fort just as the trees clear. It’s a nice site I think.
Walking along the footpath to the west the most impressive easily reached section of the ramparts is at the western end, around TQ222710. There are also handy gaps in the fence here (both sides), although these are presumably not there at aid TMA’ers but to aid golfers who have shanked their ball onto or over the normally fenced in footpath. There is also a small metal plaque close by, just on the north side of the fence, which says “This camp is protected as a monument of National Importance under the Ancient Monuments Acts 1913-53. Min of Public Buildings and Works”. This is presumably ‘the post’ alluded to at the stone plaque, although it’s not actually the westerly limit because its just inside the limit of the inside of the fort.
PS – possibly unsubstantiated info from www.thelondongolfer.com - if all the Caesar’s Camps in England were stayed at by Caesar himself, he must have been a very busy man - “Royal Wimbledon Golf Club - .....Its gently undulating land also attracted Roman emperor Caesar to camp there on his BC foray to Britain. One of the holes - the fourth - demands a short chip-and-run over what was once an embankment of the emperor's camp.” And it conveniently ignores our history, as if we had none before the romans. rant rant.
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Posted by pure joy
13th August 2003ce
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