Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton)

Nearest town:
Church Stretton (3km WSW)
OS reference:
SO477953
OS sheets:
137, 138
Latitude:
52° 33' 9.48 N
Longitude:
2° 46' 17.2 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Caer Caradoc on the left, with Ragleth Hill to the right. Seen from the lower slopes of the Long Mynd above Minton to the southwest.

Image credit: A. Brookes (19.11.2022)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 5, 2023
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Some landscape context showing how prominent the hillfort is, even amongst the steep hills around it. Seen from Callow Hill, about 7 miles to the south.

Image credit: A. Brookes (26.2.2022)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Feb 12, 2023
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Caer Caradoc rises far left over Church Stretton with The Lawley behind. Seen from Small Batch above Little Stretton to the southwest.

Image credit: A. Brookes (14.9.2019)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Feb 6, 2020
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by postman

On zoom from the south gate at The Wrekin. Caer Caradoc being the highest and the Lawley to it’s right.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Jan 16, 2013
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Seen from the south, the fort is loftily perched on its steep hilltop.

Image credit: A. Brookes (2.1.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 3, 2012
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

G/F provides scale for the ramparts protecting the southern entrance.

Image credit: A. Brookes (2.1.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 3, 2012
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

The impressive triple banks guarding the southern entrance to the fort.

Image credit: A. Brookes (2.1.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 3, 2012
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Looking down on the outer western rampart. The Berwyns range in North Wales was just visible looking NNW.

Image credit: A. Brookes (2.1.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 3, 2012
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

The western rampart curves round towards the southern end of the fort.

Image credit: A. Brookes (2.1.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 3, 2012
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

The inner eastern rampart, looking back towards Hope Bowdler Hill.

Image credit: A. Brookes (2.1.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 3, 2012
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

From the south east, below Hope Bowdler Hill. Looks like a steep climb from here.

Image credit: A. Brookes (2.1.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 3, 2012
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Seen from the Gaer Stone outcrop on Hope Bowdler Hill to the south.

Image credit: A. Brookes (2.1.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 2, 2012
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by postman

Outcrops on the eastern side, perhaps containing the cave, from a hill called Wilderness.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Sep 28, 2011
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Caer Caradoc is surrounded by extensive evidence of Iron Age life. (l-r): The Wrekin hillfort, The Lawley with its two IA earthworks, Caer Caradoc itself. Hope Bowdler Hill, on the right of the picture, has an IA field system of strip lynchets.

Image credit: A. Brookes (16.4.2011)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Apr 17, 2011
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by thesweetcheat

Caer Caradoc dominates the town of Church Stretton. Seen from the playing fields.

Image credit: A. Brookes (16.4.2011)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Apr 17, 2011
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by GLADMAN

Some of the natural defences utilised by the occupiers...... Looking towards Church Stretton

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN May 7, 2010
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by GLADMAN

Towards a very hot Church Stretton. The Long Mynd is to the right of image.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN May 6, 2010
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by postman

Three fingers rock above Church Stretton. The hillfort is behind me

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Dec 12, 2007
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by postman

From near Three fingers rock looking north up at the hillfort

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Dec 12, 2007
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by postman

These rocks form the western edge of the hillfort, when I first saw them I was imediately reminded of the Quirang on the Isle of Skye

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Dec 12, 2007
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by postman

The western edge looking north, with The Wrekin just below

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Dec 12, 2007
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by postman

The ‘back door’ with The Lawley and the Wrekin in the distance

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Dec 12, 2007
Image of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton) (Hillfort) by morfe

Caer Caradoc (right), Bodbury Ring (centre) , the Lawley (left)

Image credit: Morfe
morfe
morfe Jul 3, 2005

Articles

Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton)

thelonious
thelonious Apr 1, 2015

24/03/2015 – Starting from Church Stretton, we took the lanes then fields north east to the start of the steep climb up Caer Caradoc Hill. Took the route straight up via Three Fingers Rock with its impressive view down to the village and beyond. The ramparts cover a fair amount of the top of the hill, with each step along them offering even better views. We had lovely weather at the start and after a brew at the top made our way to have a nosey at The Lawley. Looping back over Hope Bowdler Hill, after the sunny weather up Caer Caradoc, it started to snow. I love the ever changing weather. This really is a fine hill and fort, well worth going to. Top site.

Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton)

postman
postman Dec 12, 2007

What a fantastic place .
I parked on the main road through Church Stretton and took the footpath that goes almost straight up. It was real steep sometimes but the view across to the Long Myndd more than compensates for any pain. It was very cold and windy but was otherwise sunny, I ended up staying longer than I intended missing out on Barbury ring. I’d driven past a dozen times so made the effort to come here and was really glad that I did.
The rocks on the eastern side reminded me of a mini Quirang on the isle of skye, this hillfort is one of the best, awesome views all around .

Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton)

2
2 jags Nov 16, 2003

This hillfort lies on a very steep sided and impressive hill about 2 miles NE of Church Stretton. The hill is about 1500 feet above sea level and can be seen as a very obvious landmark from many miles away. The fort itself occupies the entire summit of the hill and consists of two levels where habitation may have occured and is almost entirely surrounded by two defensive ramparts and ditches. An ancient trackway cut into the side of the hill leads up to the fort on the east face of the hill from the nearby hamlet of Willstone. There is quite a noteable feature on the west face of the hill, a cave that has quite a famous legend associated with it. The cave is located a few feet below the outer rampart and can be fairly trecherous to reach. Also there is marked on the map two tumulii on the approach to the fort, though I have not been able to locate either of them myself.

Folklore

Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton)
Hillfort
Rhiannon
Rhiannon May 12, 2011

Perhaps it was rather as the octave of Whit Sunday than as an independent festival, that Trinity Sunday was chosen for the celebration of ‘Caradoc Wakes,’ one of those ancient hill-feasts which form a marked characteristic of Shropshire folk-custom. The Caradoc – in the folk-speech the ‘Querdoc’ – is the grandest of the beautiful Stretton Hills, rising to a height of 1600 feet above the sea-level, and commanding a glorious distant view north, east, and south.

Standing one day at the upper end of the Stretton Valley, in full view of the peak of the Caradoc, I was told that it was the abode of an imprisoned fire-demon, and that when a solitary cloud rests on the summit of the hill, there may be seen the hand of the captive monster, struggling to get free. My informant had received this strange tradition from her grandfather, who, like herself, was a native of the spot.

The Trinity Sunday Wake, held upon it, was one of the great events of the year in that neighbourhood. William Homes, wheelwright [..] gave me a vivid description of it, September 8th, 1884. It was held, he said, on the level ring at the top of the hill, which is surrounded by the battery for the cannon [it is a British entrenched camp!]. There ‘standings’ were erected for the sale of refreshments, and ‘a barrel o’ drink,’ or probably several, was tapped. Old women went in and out among the crowd hawking baskets of gingerbread, and the unfailing spring on the hill-top supplied water for the tea-kettles.

Games there were in plenty; foot-races for the young men; rolling cakes down the steep side of the hill, ‘and who could get ‘em, had ‘em;’ rough jokes and horse play at times. He remembered, when quite a boy, being penned into the dark cavern called King Caractus’s [sic] Hole, by some elder lads, who kept him there for fun till they were tired out. Then there were fiddlers and plenty of dancing, but the special feature of the ‘Querdoc Wakes,’ which attracted the young men from far and near, was the wrestling for a pair of huge leathern gloves for hedging or harvest-work, which were the prize of the best man- a prize for which my old friend, now in his seventy-eighth year, had often contended, and the struggle for which gave rise to much excitement, and now and then to the exchange of a few blows, when a worsted combatant would not quietly submit to be laid on his back.

And all this on Trinity Sunday, while ‘the good church bells are loudly ringing down [in the vale] below’! ‘And when was it done away with?’ I asked another ancient sage, James Coles of Leebotwood. ‘Oh, it died out on itself,’ he said: ‘It had ought to a bin banished lung afore it was.’ But down to the present time parties of young people may be met on the evening of Trinity Sunday returning from the Caradoc, where they have been spending the day on the hill in remembrance of the old custom.

P352 in volume 2 of C.S. Burne’s ‘Shropshire Folk-Lore’ (1885)
archive.org/stream/shropshirefolkl00jackgoog#page/n196/
In volume 1 (p94) she mentions that the cave is ‘on the steepest face of the Caradoc’ and was where ‘the King hid from his enemies after his defeat’.

Folklore

Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton)
Hillfort
2
2 jags Nov 16, 2003

The local folklore is that king Caradoc (or Caractacus) made his last stand against the romans here, and after he was defeated, hid from the romans in the cave on the west face of the hill. This is a very well-known legend in the stretton valley. Similar tales have been connected to the other Caradoc hillfort near Clun. But having lived next to the Church Stretton Caradoc all my life I am naturally inclined to believe that this fort is the site of the last stand.

Sites within 20km of Caer Caradoc (Church Stretton)

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