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Oldbury HillfortHillfort
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Oldbury Rock Shelters Cave / Rock Shelter |
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Oldbury Hill Fort – 25.8.2003 An enormous hill fort, measuring 1,350m north-south, and 700m east-west, with an interior covering 49 hectares (about 125 acres)! So with only about half of it open access (National Trust land) it’s still an enormous place to mooch about in. The woodland car park at TQ578558 is an obvious place, and is signposted (not that well) from the main road – the A25. A footpath directly opposite the end of the car park takes you up to the most impressive part of the ramparts (the west side). There are various paths all over the hill fort area, or as Juamei suggests a walk around the ramparts is nice, although the A25 does follow the ramparts on the south-east side making you feel really close the road despite the oppressive trees. Excavated evidence suggests that the site as rapidly constructed on a huge scale but never occupied on a permanent basis. Short-lived settlement was discovered in the southern half of the hillfort, possibly relating to the construction period. I later found the Mesolithic oldbury Rock Shelters (I think), the northern one of which does offer rare (and beautiful) views off to the east of the hillfort. |
Posted by pure joy27th August 2003ce |
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[visited circa 16/3/3] Finally I made it back here during the day & it was well worth the visit. A fairly large fort on top of a heavily wooded hill, the single bank-ditch combo is clearly visible and a well trodden path is available either at the top of the bank or the bottom. The trees (whilst nice for hugging et al) did iritate slightly as I'd have liked to have actually seen the view, but other than that they added very nicely to the general ambience. Half of the fort is under cultivation, seemingly with apple orchards, but 'apparently' the farmer doesn't mind people walking on it. I didn't try this out however! Park in the main car park & follow the hillfort bank counter-clockwise to get to the mesolithic Rock Shelters. |
Posted by juamei30th March 2003ce Edited 30th March 2003ce |
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[actually written & added 27/11/02] This is another hillfort covered in trees & especially at night, there isn't that much to see. Apparently the east side of the fort is precipitous but we didn't make it that far, preferring instead to stop at the west embankments and wonder what the sounds were emanating from the trees. Probably a better place to visit during the day, unless you know where you are going and (possibly) have a torch... |
Posted by juamei 19th March 2003ce |
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Oldbury hillfort was built by Iron Age people (who obviously had some run-ins with other tribes or the romans, as the NE timber gate was burnt down at some point, and caches (if I may use that word) of sling stones have also been found) - But the hill was also the site of activity in the Old Stone Age. On the east side of the hillfort and 400m south of the NE fort entrance are two sandstone hollows (probably covered in vegetation) which were 'workshops' for tool makers - 40 hand axes and hundreds of flakes and other tools were found here (and are now in the Maidstone museum). |
Posted by Rhiannon30th January 2003ce Edited 25th September 2006ce |
Latest posts for Oldbury Hillfort |
Oldbury Rock Shelters (Cave / Rock Shelter) — Fieldnotes |
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Regarding the rock shelters, we learned a lot from local archaeologist Angela Muthana, and from Sir Edward Harrison's article 'Oldbury Hill, Ightham' in Archaeologia Cantiana (45, 1933, pp. 142-161), most of which corrected what we had through we knew before. Mesolithic tools have been found around the area, and people may have sheltered under Oldbury Hill's rocks in that period, but the rock shelters are most closely associated with the very end of the Middle Palaeolithic, specifically about 60,000-40,000 years ago, and thus with Neandertals, as there were no Homo Sapiens here at the time. The discovery was made by Benjamin Harrison (1837-1921), the grocer in the nearby village of Ightham. He had found many ancient tools around Ightham, but realized that they were particularly associated with the hill and its outcrops of greenstone (so coloured because of it contains glauconite, that turns a slight green on exposure to the air). These greenstone rocks overlay a softer sandstone, that, when exposed, were liable to greater erosion than the harder rock above, leading to the greenstone overhanging a space below and forming shelters. In two spots, small caves had been dug into the sandstone as well, though at what period it is difficult to say. In 1870, Harrison was electrified by seeing the London exhibition of Neandertal finds from Le Moustier, France. He recognized the similarity of the tools to those from Ightham, and reasoned that the rocks of Oldbury Hill may have been home to Neandertals just as the cave of Le Moustier had been. His great discovery, in 1890 with help from the British Association for the Advancement of Science, was a Neandertal flint-scatter at Mount Pleasant, on the slopes the north-eastern side of the hill (the precise site of which has not been rediscovered, despite several archaeological digs), directly below a rocky outcrop that is now much reduced by 19th century quarrying. Here, he found '49 well-finished implements or portions of them and 648 waste flakes have been found at this spot, leading', as he wrote in his report (co-authored by Dr John Evans, father of Sir Arthur, Dr Joseph Prestwich, who lived at nearby Shoreham, and H.G. Seeley), 'to the supposition either that this was the frontage of a rock shelter, or that the material had slipped down from above'. It is on this basis that Harrison reasoned that the Neandertals, like those of Le Moustier, had made flint tools here and would most likely have sheltered under the rocks. That is the sum total of the evidence: no Neandertal remains have been found at the rock shelter. The rock shelter is on the edge of the hill's plateau (and the edge of the hillfort: the fortifications at this point have been largely destroyed by the 19th century quarrying). There are several other points around the hillfort where there are exposed rocks: some of these may have been shelters as well. A considerable cave (5' high and about 14 or 20 yards deep) used to exist on the south east side of the hill, presumably partly, at least, burrowed out by humans, but this was destroyed by quarrying. However, some of the rocks we see now may only have been exposed when the hillfort was made. What looks like a good shelter, on the right of the path going up to the ramparts from the top of Oldbury Lane, and which could easily be mistaken for an ancient rock shelter, may actually have been exposed only when the path and nearby steps were cut by the Victorians. Oldbury Hill is within easy striking distance of London. It has impressive Iron Age fortifications, and is closely linked to Neandertals. Who needs Time Machines? |
Posted by Anthony Adolph26th April 2010ce |
Oldbury Rock Shelters (Cave / Rock Shelter) — Images (click to view fullsize) |
  
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Posted by pure joy 28th October 2003ce |
Oldbury Rock Shelters (Cave / Rock Shelter) — Fieldnotes |
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Oldbury Rock Shelters – 25.8.2003 WOW – wow wow wow. These are cool. They were occupied in the Middle Mesolithic period (100,000BC to 30,000 BC) The southern one I found with Juamei’s instructions. The shelter is just off the path marked at both ends by small concrete plaques marked ‘Public Bridleway’ (i.e. not the ravine like path marked with a wooden post labelled ‘By Way’). It’s quite amazing to think that you are standing somewhere that people used up to 100,000 years ago. Underneath the rock overhang, parts of it are surprisingly high enough for me to stand up in (I’m only 5’ 8” though). Then I found a set of shelters further north. What I saw doesn’t quite tie up with what the English Heritage record of scheduled monuments says (see the link on the oldbury page which links you across to a PDF document on the MAGIC site). Annoyingly, some of it does totally make sense, and some doesn’t. I walked about 200m along the eastern edge of the apple orchard before investigating through a small gap in the trees/undergrowth and found a large and enigmatic tree (complete with some written graffiti and sun style aerosol daubings – presumably not Mesolithic) underneath which was a set of low cave shelters / holes. This is just underneath the crest of the hill, facing east (as the English Heritage record says). And is exactly where the red dot is on Juamei’s annotated map on this page. But it’s not the same as his directions. Before finding the shelter I did go all the way down to the end of the field, where there didn’t seem to be anything. The shelters I saw did not have a platform outside of 4m wide, more like 1 metre (be careful – it’s a steep drop). And it was more like 200m from the other shelter, not 90m. Maybe I found something different? Maybe just all of us using rough measurements? Really not sure! I was really chuffed at finding these shelters and really freaked out to be feeling so close to our ancestors. NB – this second rock shelter is offically on private land so don’t come running to me if someone tells you off! |
Posted by pure joy 27th August 2003ce |
Oldbury Rock Shelters (Cave / Rock Shelter) — Images |
  
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Posted by juamei 2nd April 2003ce |
Oldbury Rock Shelters (Cave / Rock Shelter) — Fieldnotes |
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[visited circa 16/3/3] Unmarked on the main notice board & without an OS map of the area, these proved a tricky find. After coming down off the hillfort, walking through the village and failing to find the Cob Tree public house mentioned by Dyer, I asked a very helpful local. Luckily the first and easiest to find was 10 minutes walk up a path... I recommend parking in the Hillfort carpark and walking counter clockwise around the ramparts of the fort, until you reach the edge of public access. Then turn right and head off the fort, down some very muddy steps and the shelter is off to the left, past a fallen tree. Not that much to see but enough to see it would have been cold, wet and not that much of a shelter... By the side of the steps is a very curiously carved rock, from when I have no idea, anyone out there that can help?? Other shelters are accessible but I had run out of time. If I recall correctly, turn around and head back up the steps. You'll meet an apple orchard on your right, head down the side of it till its end and then turn left, the other shelters are thereabouts (ps you will need to trespass to do this). |
Posted by juamei 31st March 2003ce Edited 17th April 2003ce |
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