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SOLSBURY HILL

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Description

DESCRIPTION

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Earthwork remains of an Iron Age univallate hillfort and Medieval stripfields. Two inhumations also located.

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(ST 768679) CAMP (NR) (1)

Solsbury Hill is a univallate hill fort of I.A. 'A' date, scheduled.
Excavations in 1955, 1956 and 1958 show that the site was first
occupied by post-hole huts possibly for the I.A. 'A' builders of
the rampart of the hill fort. This rampart was faced with a dry-stone
wall and had no ditch as such. It is not more than three feet high.
After the collapse or probable destruction of the rampart occupation
was continued c. 150 B.C. by South Western 'B' people in stone based
huts. The site was completely abandoned before the Roman period
c. 100-50 B.C. and the main occupation can be dated as 2nd c. B.C.
A number of finds from extensive collecting within the hill fort for
many years are in Bath Royal Lit. & Sci. Inst. Museum. (See
AO/61/232/7 and AO/61/328/6 for plans of the hill-fort.) (2-5)

The hill-fort consists mainly of a single scarp with vestiges of
a bank on the north. On the south there is a section of ditch with
a counterscarp bank. The inturned entrance is in the NW.
There is evidence of quarrying all around the earthwork and the
scarp has been cut into on the west side.
Surveyed at 1/2500.

Within the earthwork there is a good example of low Md strip fields
with small stones marking the terminal points. (6)

Flint implements were found in the camp in 1866 by J Evans. During
the period 1896-1904 surface finds have included leaf shaped fling
arrowheads, scrapers, a spindle-whorl, worked bone and horn, and
pottery sherds, some decorated, a few pieces of bronze, and numerous
iron artifacts, the latter in association with burnt clay, charcoal,
& iron dross.

In 1902 a shallow cist was found enclosing two skeletons. (7)

(ST 768679) Fort (NR). (8)

Two inhumations, one fairly complete and contracted and the other
only fragmentary, were discovered in 1906 on one of the quarry ledges. Now the property of the National Trust. (9-11)

ST 768680: Solsbury Hill camp, listed under Camps and Settlements (12)
Additional references (13-15)

A rapid examination of air photography (16a) shows the hillfort with the Medieval strip fields and the quarrying. (16)

Solsbury Hill. Description with plan. (17)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1961

( 2) General reference

Proc Univ Bristol Spel Soc 4(3) 1935 183 ff (J P E Falconer & S B Adams)

( 3) General reference

Proc Univ Bristol Spel Soc 8(1) 1957 18 ff Plan (W A Dowden)

( 4) General reference

Proc Univ Bristol Spel Soc 9(3) 1962 177 ff (W A Dowden)

( 5) General reference

A M England & Wales 1958 67 (M O W)

( 6) Field Investigators Comments

F1 JP 17-MAR-66

( 7) General reference

The Antiquary 44 1908 284-5 (W G Collins & T C Cantrill)

( 8) General reference

OS 1:10000 1972

( 9) General reference

Antiquary 45 1909 326-31 419-25 451-56 plans illus (W G Collins & T C Cantrill)

(10) General reference

BAR 90(ii) 1981 Burial Practices in IA Britain 249 (R Whimster)

(11) General reference

NT Properties 1963 70

(12) General reference

DOE (IAM) Anc Mons in England 2 1978 8

(13) General reference

Ancient Ewks & Camps of Somerset 1924 50-51 plan fig (E Burrow)

(14) General reference

DOE SAM Rec Form 29-Oct 1986

(15) General reference

BAR 91 1981 Hillfort Settlement in Somerset 208-9 (I Burrow)

(16) General reference

Andrew Miller/28-JUL-1993/RCHME: AP Primary Recording Project

(16a) General reference

NMR, ST 7667/1-2; ST 7668/1

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