Borough Hill

Hillfort
SP587624

Also known as:

Burrow Hill

Nearest town:

Daventry (3km WSW)

OS reference:

SP587624

OS sheet:

152

Latitude:

52° 15' 22.23 N

Longitude:

1° 8' 23.77 W

Added to TMA by

Rhiannon

Images (1)
Folklore (3)
Miscellaneous (1)

Images

Image of Borough Hill (Hillfort) by heptangle

Image credit: by heptangle

heptangle Sep 26, 2006

Articles

Borough Hill

Hillfort

Rhiannon Jun 26, 2007

Daventry, a market town near the Warwickshire border, carries on a considerable manufactory of silk stockings, and of whips. Its horse fairs are frequented by dealers from all parts of the kingdom.
Near the town is Borough-hill, a remain of antiquity of great note, being probably the largest encampment in the island. It is commonly called Dane’s Hill, but the real authors of it are uncertain.

p201 of ‘England Described: Being a Concise Delineation of Every County in England and Wales’ by John Aiken (1818).

Borough Hill

Hillfort

Rhiannon Jun 26, 2007

JACKSON’S PIG.
“It’s gone over Borough Hill (an extensive Roman encampment near Daventry) after Jackson’s pig.”
A common phrase in that neighbourhood when anything is lost.

From p354 of ‘Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases’ By Anne Elizabeth Baker (1854). Online at Google Books.

Borough Hill

Hillfort

Rhiannon Sep 21, 2006

In Northamptonshire the plant [dwarf elder] is known also as Dane-weed, and Defoe in his ‘Tour through Great Britain’ speaks of his going a little out of the road from Daventry to see a great camp called Barrow Hill, and adds :—
“They say this was a Danish camp, and everything hereabout is attributed to the Danes, because of the neighbouring Daventry, which they suppose to be built by them. The road hereabouts, too, being overgrown with Dane-weed, they fancy it sprang from the blood of Danes slain in battle; and that, if upon a certain day in the year you cut it, it bleeds.“—Vol. ii. p. 362.

Notes and Queries January 7th, 1911.

Can this really be the second largest hillfort in the country? It’s a bit of a cheat – 4.5 acres inside a bigger 150 acre enclosure. It used to be covered with BBC masts but Daventry council own it now and there’s only one left. Apparently it’s a bit of a birding site and full of butterflies in the sun. A late bronze age axe has been found there.