More information : (TL 43780030) Ambersbury Banks (NR) (1)
Ambresbury Banks in an 11.7 acre (4.7 Ha) roughly ovate
univallate enclosure of Iron Age date with a wide external
ditch and some remains of a counter-scarp bank up to 1.0m.
high. The main bank, up to 2.2m. high, was of dump
construction, without any form of revetment, originally
separated from the ditch by a berm. Originally the only
entrance was on the northwest side approached by a
trapezoidal causeway across a V-shaped ditch about 9.0m. wide
and 3.0m. deep. (2)
A scatter of indeterminate flint and pottery and a barbed and
tanged arrowhead represent the only early occupation. The fort
was built in the second half of the first millenium BC and a
re-cutting of the ditch may represent a re-occupation in the
pre-Conquest years of the first century AD. No later occupation
material was found. A post-Medieval trackway on the line of the
parish boundary crossed over the collapsed north-west entrance
and passed out of the southeast break, Here quarrying and
dumping formed a false inturn to the bank. In the 18th century
another trackway broke through the northeast and southwest
banks being confirmed, outside the latter by "The Ditches", cut
for drainage.
Morant (a) calls the fort "Ambres Bank" in 1768 but quotes a
source of 1670 which names "Amesbury Woods" (b). In 1806 Gough
(c) gives the name as Ambresbury Banks.
'Ambresbury', the commonly accepted spelling, was confirmed by
the superintendent of Epping Forest. (3)
Published 1:2500 revised. No survey change required. (4)
(TL 437003) Ambresbury Banks (NR). (5)
Scheduled listing. (6)
Excavations were carried out by the Essex Field Club under the direction of Mr Hazzeldine Warren in 1933 in the ditch of the camp believed to date from the Early Iron Age. Some sherds of pottery were found but were in an advanced state of decomposition. The ditch was found to have a flat bottom, not a V-shape as previously recorded. (7) |