The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Cherhill Down and Oldbury

Hillfort

Fieldnotes

Cherhill Down is a place close to my heart -might even get my ashes scattered up here one day - as a landscape its totally weird, those folds of the hills that seem to draw you down into a vortex. The hillfort when visited last November was full of sheep and the day was misty, its part of the Avebury landscape that is thankfully untouchable because of the terrain.
I can see the monument from the downs round Bath, a good 30 kms away, and it is always a reminder of the nearness of the prehistoric settlements round here, Avebury, the Mendips, Cotswolds, Stonehenge and Salisbury Plain. The movement of people through the high lands with the marshy ground below, visiting each other at certain times through the year,, generations of people living in a landscape that provided for them. They melded the land into a place of permanent homestead, from the early beginnings of the causewayed enclosures of Windmill Hill and Nash Hill down to these large defensive iron age hillforts.
Practical facts; 25 acres defended by two banks and ditches, with an inturned entrance on the East. Area enclosed is divided across by a small bank and ditch running N/S (probably not contemporary) Pottery of 2nd/3rd century bc has been found in rubbish pits inside.
moss Posted by moss
25th January 2007ce
Edited 1st May 2008ce

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