Visions like that are inexpicable. So I won't even offer opinion, let alone explanation.

A great many "forts" in Ireland are built near to or around cairns or burial mounds.

You raise a good question (or was it Nigel?) ... did they build the hillfort to protect these monuments? Maybe they did. I have always wondered why Europe's largest hillfort, above Baltinglass in Co. Wicklow, didn't use up the cairn material from the great triple passage tomb on the peak of the hill. The fort is 3000 years newer than the tombs though, so only some form of respect or fear could explain it.

Iron age secondary buials in Neolithic tombs (very common in Ireland) is perhaps an indication of tradition and respect. Though it can't be reverence, because if it was, then to put an invasive burial into it could be seen as sacrilage.

I think that a lot of the rath/ringfort associations with standing stones and mounds was for the prestige factor. A curious one is Ballymacgibbon cairn amongst others.

The Hill Of Tara, Navan Fort, Dun Ailine and Magh Adhair all have the 'enclosure around the mound' feature. These are all Royal Inauguration sites.

I don't think the protecting ancient sites is a valid option though. I think it's coincidence, pure and simple. The passage tomb builders built sites in remote, hard to get to, landscape dominating positions ... ideal locations for a hillforts. And yet a great number of such tombs do not have later hillforts around them.

Oh boy, hill forts and Wychbury in particular, where do I start?

First of all it’s not necessarily the hill fort per se. Some do it some don’t. Most have something, if only the fabulous view. Woodbury is very nice, but not the atmosphere of Wychbury. British Camp is magnificent – mainly for the views. Maiden Castle is imperious – almost in an architectural sort of way. Caer Carodoc has a “feel” and fab views – no doubt; but a recent trip with Morfe to Bury Ditches near Clun was wonderful and the views just amazing, but it didn’t necessarily make me gag. Sometimes this will change with the weather of course.

Wychbury! Well what can I say? FW is right of course when he talks of the destruction and fear that might have gone hand in hand with such sites. And indeed Wychbury has a dark, menacing side to it, but there’s something else as well. I can concur with Morfe and say that I’ve known an number of people of different backgrounds and ages who, without prompting, have said that there is an “atmosphere” about the place. Hell, it’s the reason for me and Morfe getting to know each other! Is that the menacing side acting ;-)

For me? Well there is something about the place. It’s more than the hill fort, and here we enter the world of hunches, supposition, gut feelings and aesthetics. It definitely has the feel of a mother landscape to it. The hill itself and the rolling hillocks on its slopes. It also has a feeling for me of in some way being connected with the moon – pure gut feeling. The yew trees are magnificent and add to the grandeur of the place. But what I like is the continuity of it. Celtic field systems, burial mounds near-by, battle? – probably, Roman hoards and the fact that it might have been named after the Whicce tribe. In the 18th century some of it was landscaped in the great tradition of the time and even now at the foot of it lies “Wassel Grove Lane,” a hangover from more ancient times?

Thank you for listening