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BRENT KNOLL HILLFORT

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Earthwork remains of an Iron Age hillfort comprising a bank and outer ditch with a counterscarp bank, cultivation terraces and lynchets. 19th century excavation uncovered a Roman building. Excavations revealed the site of a Roman building with painted plaster, coins and pottery. Reports from the 18th and 19th century indicate the discovery of a coin hoard (supposedly of the emperors Trajan to Severus, AD 98-211) and weapons and fibulae. Iron Age pottery has been found. The monument is Scheduled. Part of the lower terrace of the fort and the lynchets were utilized during World War Two for slit trenches by the Home Guard. A semicircular earthwork feature on the coastal side may be a gun emplacement relating to this period.

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[ST 34125098] Hill Fort [G.T.] (1)

Brent Knoll - a simple I.A. hill fort with 'splayed defences' at the entrance. There are remains of cultivation terraces and lynchets on the hill-slopes but quarrying has obliterated some of the earthworks. The hill fort is oval and comprises bank and outer ditch with a counterscarp bank. On the north-east is a second bank and ditch (3). There are a number of 18/19th. c. references to a hoard of Roman coins of Severus and Trajan having been found here and other finds of urns, weapons, fibulae, etc.(4)(5). Skinner (6) excavated an area of black occupation-soil apparently on the west side of the hill-fort, and recorded foundation-stones, painted plaster, Samian and other sherds, coins, charcoal and other occupational debris; he also found 'unbaked British ware', a flint arrowhead and human remains and concluded that it was the site of a Roman building destroyed by quarrying. Many other finds of IA and RB potsherds have been recorded in recent years and are in Taunton Museum and private collections. (2-8)

The hill fort encloses the top of a steep sided 400ft. knoll. The defences consist of a bank which has been strengthened by scarping and a berm, below which is a further scarp encircling all but the N.E. side of the hill. The interior has been considerably lowered by quarrying, and the entrance which is on the east, has been largely quarried away; there are indications that it was inturned.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
The cultivation terraces are mainly on the south side of the knoll, between the 250' and 400' contours. They appear to be of medieval type. (9)

A quantity of RB sherds from Brent Knoll is in Taunton Castle Museum, but we know of no evidence to support Skinner's claim of a destroyed Ro. building. (10)

Report on surface examination and search in 1972. This generally confirms FI's plan of 21 1 65, though D-shaped platforms cut into the hillside are claimed 'on either side of the entrance in front of the slightly inturned rampart ends'. At the SE corner exposed stones in the inner rampart appeared to be placed rather than rubble, and in the scree from this exposure several IA and RB sherds, 2 possible Md sherds, and other debris were found. From a similar position behind the NW rampart a few more IA and RB were collected. Finds to be deposited in Weston-super-Mare Museum. (11)

ST 341510: The site has been classified as Burrow's Group I. (12)

ST 341510: Camp on Brent Knoll. Scheduled. (13)

A plan and illustration by Burrow are together with a descriptive text. (14)

ST 341 510. Brent Knoll. Listed in gazetteer as a multivallate hillfort covering 2.1ha. (15)

A rapid examination of air photography (16a) shows a group of at least three lynchets, of Uncertain date, visible as earthworks on the hill slope south of Brent Knoll fort (ST 340 508). (16)

The Defence of Britain Database records that World War II slit trenches are located on Brent Hill at ST 3412 5098. Some are straight, others zig-zag. They appear to have once been revetted. They may have been part of the Somerst Coastal defences. (17)

A member of the Fortress Study Group reports a World War II gun-emplacement at Brent Knoll hillfort. It consists of a low cemi-circular bank, facing north, towards the coast. It is backed by a substantial earthwork, which appears to have the remains of dugouts and magazines , etc, on either of its flanks. Apparently constucted by the Home Guard in the early 1940s. (18)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1961

( 2) Antiquity Publications Limited Antiquity

(D P Dobson) 22 - 1948 Page(s)43-45

( 3) edited by William Page 1911 The Victoria history Somerset, volume two

The Victoria history of the counties of England 1911 Page(s)483

( 4) General reference

Delineations NW Somerset 1829 p88 (Rutter)

( 5) General reference

History of Bristol 1789 p10 (W Barrett)

( 6) Externally held archive reference

British Museum Add MSS 33726, f 106, 33719 f 95 ff; 33646 f 8 ff

( 7) Annotated Record Map

Rec 6" (OGS Crawford, 1927)

( 8) Somerset archaeology and natural history : the proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society

96 - 1951 Page(s)20

( 9) Field Investigators Comments

F1 JP 21-JAN-65

(10) Oral information, correspondence (not archived) or staff comments

(11) Council for British Archaeology Group 12: Newsletter

CBA Groups XII & XIII Archaeol Review 7 1972 p49 (PJ Fowler and PA Rahtz) 7 - 1972 Page(s)49

(12) by Ian Burrow 1981 Hillfort and hill-top settlement in Somerset in the first to eighth centuries A.D.

BAR British series1 (1974) - 91 Page(s)236-8

(13) General reference

DOE SAMS Somerset 31-Dec-1987

(14) General reference

Ancient Ewks & Camps of Somerset 1924 pp66-7 (EJ Burrow)

(15) by A H A Hogg 1979 British hillforts : an index

BAR British series1 (1974) - 62 Page(s)200

(16) General reference

Andrew Miller/08-MAR-1993/RCHME: AP Primary Recording Project

(16a) Aerial photograph

SOM 13167: 04-5

(17) Migrated Defence of Britain Project database record originally compiled from various sources

The two databases developed by the Project can be searched on-line through the Archaeology Data Service at http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/specColl/dob/index.cfm

(20) Oral information, correspondence (not archived) or staff comments

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