An earthwork site once interpreted as being a Roman Legionary fortress; though now thought to be a probable Iron Age hillfort. Late Bronze Age and Iron Age pottery and a Roman pottery sherds have been found here. The site was later incorporated into Brough/ Burgh Medieval Deer Park and may have indeed given the park its name.
(SK 498058) Bury Camp (NR) (1)
A rectangular camp of single vallum & fosse, known as "Ratby Burrow" or "Bury" Camp: occupies an area of over nine acres.
Rampart 3ft high on north side with escarpment of 38ft into a ditch with 9ft counterscarp. "At the NE & SW angles the vallum rises to a greater height and at the former is a fragment of a slightly raised circular platform". Four of the gaps "are in each side, are no doubt entrances: so apparently are two other openings near the eastern angles, that at the northern looked down upon by the aforesaid platform, and that on the south defended by a rise in the vallum to 8 ft perpendicular measurement. At point 'C' on plan (2) is a modern opening". Gould suggests that the earthwork is pre-Roman. (2-4)
Possible site of the early legionary camp in the neighbourhood of Leicester. "It may be suggested that the earthworks at Ratby, of which a plan made by Throsby in 1791 is reproduced on p 4, may be the actual site. The position is a commanding one on the hills three miles west of Leicester. The shape of the camp certainly suggests a Roman rather than an earlier or later origin, while a small sherd of Roman mortarium was picked up in a rabbit scrape in 1938. Excavation is obviously necessary to prove this suggestion". (5)
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