More information : (SU 0832 6397) RYBURY CAMP
In 1995, RCHME carried out an analytical earthwork survey of the causewayed enclosure on Rybury Hill (SU 06 SE 14) as part of a national project to record industry and enclosure in the neolithic period (1). The overlying Iron Age hillfort and presumed Post Medieval chalk or flint extraction pits were allocated new NMR numbers (respectively SU 06 SE 63 and 64), to enhance the record.
The site was surveyed at 1:1250 scale in the early 1960s by RCHME, prior to a small scale excavation by Desmond Bonney. In 1973 It was described by the Ordnance Survey as follows: the Iron Age enclosure comprises a ditch, averaging 1.5m deep, with an outer counterscarp bank rising 1.1m above it. The enclosure is 190.0m long N-S by about 150.0m overall, with a simple break to the S, Probably indicating the original entrance. Although the SE section of the enclosure is severely mutilated by modern quarrying the ditch is clearly incomplete, with several gang-work type banks still crossing it. These are particularly noticeable in the E (1a;b).
The earthwork remains basically as described above. Although the description of 'causeways' in the ditch is correct, the interpretation of the monument as a hillfort, of Late Bronze Age or early Iron Age date, is almost certainly correct.
For further information, see Level 3 archive report and earthwork plan at 1:1000 scale, held in the Archive. A number of colour photographs were taken, subsequent to the field survey, but as part of the same project; these are also available through the Archive. (1)
The Late Bronze Age or Iron Age fort described by the previous authorities has also been mapped at 1:10,000 scale from aerial photographs. It has been photographed from the air a number of times from the 1920's onwards. (2-5) |