Little Solsbury Hill Hillfort View all content for Little Solsbury Hill

Details of hillfort on Pastscape Pastscape (ST 768679) CAMP (NR) Solsbury Hill is a univallate hill fort of I.A. 'A' date, scheduled. Excavations in 1955, 1956 and 1958 show that the site was first occupied by post-hole huts possibly for the I.A. 'A' builders of the rampart of the hill fort. This rampart was faced with a dry-stone wall and had no ditch as such. It is not more than three feet high. After the collapse or probable destruction of the rampart occupation was continued c. 150 B.C. by South Western 'B' people in stone based huts. The site was completely abandoned before the Roman period c. 100-50 B.C. and the main occupation can be dated as 2nd c. B.C. A number of finds from extensive collecting within the hill fort for many years are in Bath Royal Lit. & Sci. Inst. Museum. (See AO/61/232/7 and AO/61/328/6 for plans of the hill-fort.) (2-5) The hill-fort consists mainly of a single scarp with vestiges of a bank on the north. On the south there is a section of ditch with a counterscarp bank. The inturned entrance is in the NW. There is evidence of quarrying all around the earthwork and the scarp has been cut into on the west side. Surveyed at 1/2500. Within the earthwork there is a good example of low Md strip fields with small stones marking the terminal points. (6) Flint implements were found in the camp in 1866 by J Evans. During the period 1896-1904 surface finds have included leaf shaped fling arrowheads, scrapers, a spindle-whorl, worked bone and horn, and pottery sherds, some decorated, a few pieces of bronze, and numerous iron artifacts, the latter in association with burnt clay, charcoal, & iron dross. In 1902 a shallow cist was found enclosing two skeletons. (ST 768679) Fort (NR). Two inhumations, one fairly complete and contracted and the other only fragmentary, were discovered in 1906 on one of the quarry ledges. Now the property of the National Trust. (9-11) ST 768680: Solsbury Hill camp, listed under Camps and Settlements. A rapid examination of air photography (16a) shows the hillfort with the Medieval strip fields and the quarrying.

Posted by Chance 12th April 2015ce

Comments (1)
"Flint implements were found in the camp in 1866" suggests an originally Neolithic site rather than an Iron Age hill fort. I get the feeling the majority of prehistoric hill forts started out life as causewayed enclosures.	Posted by Mega6 9th June 2015ce
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