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BERRY CASTLE

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Berry Castle is a late Iron Age or early Romano British hillslope enclosure visible as a series of earthworks. The interior shows no sign of any structures of platfroms but part may have been levelled. An outwork, 150m to the south west of the slope extends for 25m as a weak bank and ditch. The complex is scheduled.

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[SS 85924495] Berry Castle (NAT) Camp (NR). (1)

Berry Castle, situated on the slope of a steep and narrow headland at
the top of Honbush Wood, is a rectangular enclosure about 40 yds.
square cut off from the mainland to the south-west by a ditch which iscontinued at right-angles round the sides of the camp. (2)

A small promontory camp artificially fortified on the west but withoutany stone bank on the east, owing to the very steep slope on the
ground. (3)

Univallate hill-fort of under 3 acres. (4)
An unfinished encampment in a wood 1.5 miles S.W. of Porlock is said
to have been thrown up in 1052 when Porlock was invaded by Harold,
Godwin's son. The entrance is on the south and the upper north
trenches are very deep. `Swords and other instruments of war have
been found in its area'. [Savage's `south' is actually north-east,
his `north' south-west.] (5)

A strong bank and ditch forms three sides of a square on a N.E. facingslope. There is no indication that the N.E. side which must have contained the entrance, was ever closed by an earthwork. The gap in the S.W. side has been caused by the construction of the modern boundary bank. The S.W. half of the interior appears to have been levelled as if for a habitation or building site.
It is not a hill-fort, but could be an I.A. hill-slope enclosure
although its angularity is unusual. Savage's report is only of face
value, yet its situation size and plan suggest the possibility of a
medieval origin e.g. a farmstead or hunting lodge.
Surveyed at 1/2500. (6)

Higher up the spur, 380ft. S.W. of the main earthwork, is a much
slighter crossbank, a rampart and ditch running 80ft. N.W. form the
parish boundary hedgebank. This is presumably a similar outwork to
those occurring at other Somerset/Devon hill forts. (7)

Berry Castle, an enclosure probably Iron Age in date, is situated in
wood and overgrown with trees and scrub. A single bank and ditch on
the N. W and S sides peters out on the steep slope and the E side is
undefended. On the SE side a second outer bank and ditch has been
added for a short stretch. The banks are both about 4-5ft high on theinside and 8-10 ft. high from the ditch bottom, and all the banks and
ditches are about 21ft. across. The enclosure makes little sense
militarily, as it is overlooked by higher ground on the W side which
is not strongly defended. (8)

SS 859449, Berry Camp, three sides of a rectangular enclosure, perhaps unfinished, with an outer crossbank 115m up the ridge to the SW. "The earthworks are quite massive and the Ordnance Survey's interpretation
of the site as a medieval hunting lodge enclosure (see Authy 6) seems
improbable". There is no sign of an entrance, although its position
may have been obscured by the massive field wall, forming the parish
boundary, which bisects the site. (9)

Berry Castle is a typical Iron Age hillslope enclosure of massive
proportions. An outwork lies 140 paces up the slope above it, the
ditch of which was waterlogged when visited by Grinsell 31st May 1969.Savage's statement (Authy 5) that swords and other instruments of war
etc "is of doubtful value". (10)

(SS 85924495) Berry Castle (NAT)
Easrthwork (NR) (sic) (11)

Additional Bibliography. (12, 13, 14, 15).

Berry Castle, at SS 8592 4495, is situated on a shelf part way down a
steep 1 in 5 slope which runs for some 400 metres between two coombes
250 metres apart in a roughly S.W. - N.E. direction, i.e. from high
ground in the south west. The shelf is barely 70 metres wide and
extends for about 60 metres to the north east as a 1 in 15 slope
before reverting to 1 in 5. It is now in an area of old oak coppice.
Facing the steep upward slope to the south west is a massive bank 35
metres long with an outer ditch and a central gap of 7 metres at whichpoint it is traversed by a parish boundary bank which effectively
bisects the earthwork. To the south east of this bank the rampart is
about 7 metres wide, and 1.7 metres high internally; the ditch is 6
metres wide and 2 metres deep, with a flat bottom 2 metres wide. To
the north east side of the parish boundary bank there is the central
gap and rampart and ditch of similar width but much weaker, the bank
averaging only 0.6 metres high and the ditch 1.1 metres deep.
At each end, the earthwork makes a right angled turn to the north
east, that on the northern side ending after 30 metres, and that on
the southern side ending after 10 metres. Thus, most of the south
side and all of the north east defence is provided only by natural
slopes. The ramparts seem to be constructed solely of earth and
shillet with no signs of revetting.
The 7 metres gap probably incorporated the original entrance. Whybrow(7) suggests that it was of overlapping type but it is difficult to
see any evidence for this. For 3 metres the ditch has been infilled
with stone rubble to form a causeway which has also been used as a
basis for the boundary bank, resting on the southern side though a
bump in the bank indicates that the rampart at least went as far as
this.
The interior of the enclosure shows no signs of structures or
platforms but there is the impression of levelling near the south westside as noted by Palmer (6). In general the enclosure can be placed
in the Iron Age/Romano-British hillslope category.
The outwork, first noted by Whybrow, is at SS 8575 4484, 150 metres tothe south west up the slope, and 7 metres from the north side of the
parish bank. It extends for 25 metres at an angle of 45 degrees to
the hillslope, as a weak ditch and bank. The rushy flat-bottomed ditcis 4.5 metres wide and 0.6 metres deep, the bank on the lower side is
of similar width, barely 0.2 metres above the ditch but 1 metre high
on the north where material is spread down the slope.
Whybrow's plan shows it at right angles to the slope, with a short
continuation south of the parish boundary bank. There is, however, notrace of this or of any dip or bump on the hedgerow to suggest a
former continuation. The outwork may be associated with the enclosurebut does little to augment the defence of a settlement, secluded and
already difficult of access. It is arguable as to whether either or
both are unfinished. (16)

Generally as described by source (16). The site was surveyed at 1:1000 scale in April 1997, as part of the RCHME Exmoor Project. A full report, plan and land use/management overlay have been deposited in the NMR. The only significant addition is that the outwork continues further southwards than originally thought, covering a length of some 105 m. (17)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1962

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

The Victoria history of the counties of England (C H Bothamley) 2, 1911 Page(s)479

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

(H St George Gray) 74, 1928 Page(s)73

( 4) Ordnance Survey 1962 Ordnance Survey map of southern Britain in the Iron Age

1962 Page(s)45

( 5) General reference

History of the Hundred of Carhampton 1830 (J Savage) Page(s)91-2

( 6) Field Investigators Comments

F1 JWP 24-JUN-65

( 7) Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings

(C Whybrow) 25, 1967 Page(s)9-11

( 8) Scheduled Monument Notification

DOE (IAM) Record Form 24 1 77

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

BAR British series1 (1974) - 91, 1981

(10) by L V Grinsell 1970 The archaeology of Exmoor : Bideford Bay to Bridgwater

Page(s)79,85,201

(11) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 1:10000 1978

(12) General reference

Archaeology of Somerset 1931 (DP Dobson) Page(s)206

(13) General reference

Ancient Ewks & Camps of Somer 1924 plan illust (EJ Burrow) Page(s)62-3

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

M Aston 127, 1983 Page(s)98

(15) by A Hadrian Allcroft 1908 Earthwork of England : prehistoric, Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman, and mediaeval

Page(s)207

(16) Field Investigators Comments

F2 NVQ 31-JUL-87

(17) Field Investigators Comments

R WILSON-NORTH & H RILEY 23 APR 1997 RCHME FIELD INVESTIGATION

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