Pencarrow House is a historic house and garden open to the public. The entrance and long driveway is off Old School Lane, which connects the A389 and B3266 near Washaway. Well signposted. The 'hill fort' is 300metres from this entrance and is literally split in two by the driveway up to the house. You'll probably notice that it's not on much of a hill, and it isn't the highest local point. A hill slope fort in reality. As there were signs saying 'No waiting' and 'No stopping on the driveway' I thought fair enough, it's your grounds, so your rules and decided to park just outside the gates and walk in.
The ramparts are very impressive. Shame the road goes right through them! Although these ramparts and ditches are impressive it does make you wonder how much space was left to live or shelter. In some places the gap between the inner and outer ring is up to 24m but still that's not much if you think about it. On the west side an incomplete annexe can be seen (cut by the road).
Mentioned by Craig Weatherhill, in “Cornovia: Ancient Sites of Cornwall & Scilly” (Cornwall Books - 1985, revised 1997 & 2000) as “a bivallate Iron Age fort with a small central enclosure 90m in overall diameter. It is closely surrounded on the south-east side by an ovoid outer work which bulges away on the north–west side so that the gap between them is as much as 24m. On the west side there is an incomplete annexe formed by a single bank and ditch. The inner rampart, up to 3.4m high, is encircled by a ditch 1.1m deep. The outer bank reaches a height of 3.0m and its ditch survives to a depth of 1.4m. The annexe is unusually strong, with an outer ditch 1.6m deep fronting a bank 3.1m high. The original entrance probably faced west, and is now utilized by the drive to Pencarrow House which penetrates to the centre of the fort and bends to pierce the southern defences. The fort has extensive outworks on all except the north-east side; these are set at a minimum distance of 200m from the outer rampart.”
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