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England
Cadbury Castle (South Cadbury)Hillfort
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Lectures at Cadbury Day of lectures about Cadbury Castle and its landscape. Saturday 20th September 2008, North Cadbury Village Hall, 9.30am - 4.30pm. Speakers: Dr richard Tabor, Clare Randall, Susan Jones Details and booking form: www.southcadbury.org.uk |
Posted by Richard Tabor 25th July 2008ce Edited 25th July 2008ce |
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Visited 30.5.10. I had read a lot about this site over the years so I was looking forward to my visit - and I wasn't disappointed! The free car park is well sign posted when entering the village and it is only a short walk to the public footpath along Castle Lane. A 10 minute walk up the steep hill through the trees and you are there. Myself and Dafydd then spent an enjoyable 30 minutes walking right around the hillfort enjoying the fantastic view all around. Well, at least I was - Dafydd was more interested in honing his 'sliding down the ramparts on his bum' skills he first learned at Bratton Hillfort a couple of weeks ago- much to the dismay of his mother!! Definitely worth a visit. |
Posted by CARL 1st June 2010ce |
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Personally, having had my first home within 20m of the hillfort's base, then excavating on it as a boy from 1966-70 and finally founding and running the South Cadbury Environs Project, I'm in agreement with the writer who thinks Cadbury is the best of all hillforts! For a more considered justification read the book! Hillforts were massive engineering undertakings and from their inceptions have implications for the population of a wider landscape. Two surveys of southern British hillforts have been published in popular and academic form (Danebury, Hampshire; Maiden Castle) but a book for general readership of the most detailed survey, that around Cadbury Castle, is about to appear in August 2008. The book covers work by the South Cadbury Environs Project from 1992-2007 and is by its then director, Dr Richard Tabor ("Cadbury Castle: The hillfort and landscapes"). An academic report is in preparation. The project is continuing its work under the leadership of Clare Randall and those interested, either generally or with a view to doing voluntary work, shopuld visit the newly relaunched website from 21st June 2008 (www.southcadbury.org.uk). |
Posted by Richard Tabor 16th June 2008ce Edited 16th June 2008ce |
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Visited 1992 and 1994 Though now ruled by cattle, once fit for a king. This Iron Age hillfort was re-occupied and refortified on a large scale during the Late Roman or sub-Roman period. No doubt about that part. As to the builder, without any written evidence we will be kept guessing. Ambrosius Aurelianus? Possibly, but can't be sure where to locate him. Arthur? No contemporary evidence available. Whoever it was, it has been proposed by experts that the massive workforce neede to strenghten Cadbury's defences can be compared to the workforce of both Wansdyke and Bokely Dyke, earthwork that are very close by. My solution: if not Arthur, than surely a different person with the same name :-) |
Posted by Vortigern13th November 2002ce |
| the Best hillfort in Britain! Absolutely stunning views of many major sites. Forget the King Arthur tosh- he didn't exist, but the setting is definately fit for a king. Much Archaeological work going on there at present, presenting new finds IA & BA. Watch for a TV progamme on the site presented by Carenza of Time Team fame in OCT/NOV, if only for the stunning shots of the site. Dont forget a fantastic BA shield was recently found there, one used in ritual and the only one found in context.Poignant as F%&*. |
Posted by Mouse 28th June 2000ce |
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Stunning views to the South and East up towards Glastonbury Tor. There's a legend that this was the site of Camelot, and that old Art himself appears every year on Midsummer's Day. What better way to mark this than installing a large Round Table, right on top of the hill (lottery money apparently) Up in the centre, towards the South side at what is probably the highest point, there's a circle of earth already cut out, so it'll probably be there. Hurry whilst you can then ... (visited on Easter Sunday) |
Posted by RiotGibbon 28th April 2000ce |
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People round here must be very fond of a tale - the variety and permutations are endless.Some talked of the king's palace and kitchen and well; and the imaginative Stukeley had a story of a road across the fields, 'bearing very rank corn,' which was known as 'King Arthur's Hunting-causeway.' Here we see the warrior king turning into a shadowy creature like the wild huntsman of the German tales.Ah those witty locals. In 'Somerset: Highways, Byways, and Waterways. Edinburgh Review 181 (April 1895). |
Posted by Rhiannon1st April 2009ce |
According to legend the ghosts of Arthur and his knights make a periodic nocturnal ride over the hilltop and down to Sutton Montis below, where their horses drink at a spring. This is reputed to happen on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Night, or Christmas Eve, or every seventh year, so the ghosts may be difficult to catch riding.p45 in 'The Landscape of King Arthur' by Geoffrey Ashe (1987). Hmm. A flute - or maybe pan pipes?? Spooky. The name of the highest part of the plateau can be traced to at least the same kind of time (1586): 'Arthur's Palace'. Curiously, (although no trace was known before excavation) there actually was a timber hall on that spot in the 5th century - the era that an 'Arthur' would have lived. There was also a gatehouse (in the gap in the top rampart to the SW) and the whole perimeter was protected by a 16ft thick fortification made of stone and wood. Such a type and size of structure is apparently very unusual for this period - so 'Camelot' is actually quite credible as the headquarters of a king or regional chief, according to Ashe's book. |
Posted by Rhiannon 21st November 2005ce Edited 21st November 2005ce |
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According to Berta Lawrence, in 'Somerset Legends' (1975), young people used to come to Arthur's well to drink because it would 'make their dreams come true'; and while they were about it they would carve their initials on the nearby trees. The water is particularly magical on St John's Eve (that is, the midsummer solstice), because a true-hearted person who bathes their eyes in the well then might see the hill open up and glimpse Arthur and his men sleeping inside. The book also mentions proof that the hill is indeed hollow - when the inside of the enclosure was cultivated, a barley stack near one of the entrances sank below the surface of the earth before it could be threshed. Very peculiar, apparently. |
Posted by Rhiannon 28th September 2005ce |
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King Arthur and his men ride round the hill on silver-shod horses when there's a full moon at midsummer. They ride over the hill to the spring next to Sutton Montis church. You can also hear their horses in Arthur's Lane (is this 'Folly Lane'?). It is also called 'King Arthur's Hunting Causeway'. Normally Arthur and his knights live inside the hill: it's hollow, and they lie sleeping waiting for when the country needs their help. Sounds from King Arthur's Well can be heard at Queen Anne's Wishing Well, which is a good 200 metres away, but still within the ramparts. (partly from J+C Bord's 'Atlas of Magical Britain', also 'Somerset Folklore' by Ruth Tongue, 1965, collected 1906) [King Arthur and his knights] come riding down from Camelot to drink of the waters of a spring by Sutton Monks [sic] Church on the eve of every Christmas Day (J A Bennet, Cadbury, p4). According to another account, related to me by Mrs Church, King Arthur goes down to drink on St. John's Eve, and anyone he meets, if not of perfectly pure life, he strikes dead.From The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore Arthur J. Evans Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Mar., 1895), p25 in pp. 6-53. In 1872 the Bath Nat. Hist and Antiq. Field Club took an excursion here - they recorded the story about King Arthur riding around the hill with his men on silver-shod horses - and to prove it, they were told that one of the shoes had been found embedded in the track! King Arthur's Lane is also mentioned as 'a nearly lost bridle path leaving Cadbury by its West gate' and heading straight for Glastonbury. S Toulson (in 'Moors of the Southwest, v1' 1983) says that the fairies who lived in the surrounding fields used to bring corn up to the fort to give to Arthur. This was until the installation of bells in the nearby church - at which time they left. |
Posted by Rhiannon 9th May 2002ce Edited 30th September 2006ce |
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Cadbury Castle, South Cadbury, Somerset. there is loads of info on this site, which is, really worthwhile a visit. see the following link to Somerset Council HER record. http://webapp1.somerset.gov.uk/her/details.asp?prn=54552 |
Posted by bergman 27th May 2006ce |
At the very south ende of the chirch of South-Cadbyri standith Camallate, sumtyme a famose toun or castelle, upon a very torre or hill, wunderfully enstrengtheid of nature, to the which be 2. enteringes up by very stepe way: one by north est and another by south west.from John Leland's 'Itinerary' (1542), an excerpt taken from the Britannia webpage http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/leland.html |
Posted by Rhiannon 21st November 2005ce |
| Look out for 'Arthurs Well' as you go up through the lane to the fort - Like me and my first trip to the fort, most people don't know its there. |
Posted by vulcan 5th May 2003ce |
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YouTubeShort film about the superb bronze shield excavated at South Cadbury, now residing at the Museum of Somerset (due to reopen this year). Steve Minnitt explains how it's the only shield ever to have been found during an archaeological excavation, and it owes its current state to the fact it wasn't found under 'different circumstances' ie metal detectorists who would have pulled it out of the ground immediately and disintegrated it into a squillion useless pieces. |
Posted by Rhiannon 12th March 2011ce Edited 31st March 2011ce |
South Cadbury Environs ProjectWebsite reporting on ongoing archaeological work around the hillfort of Cadbury Castle, Somerset. The project is multiperiod, reporting on excavations, geophysics and ploughzone sampling with results ranging from the Early Neolithic, through the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British, to the Medieval periods. The site also provides information about volunteer and student opportunities with the project, whicxh is run through the Department of Archaeology at the University of Bristol. For more information contact: Richard Tabor at RTabor8387@aol.com. 11 December 2002 |
Posted by Tabor 11th December 2002ce Edited 14th February 2003ce |
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