More information : [ST 839449] CAMP [GT]. (1)
Cley Hill Camp is an IA univallate contour hill-fort of 17 acres.
The hillside is scarred on the SE and W but elsewhere there is only
a flat shelving. There is no obvious original entrance; the SW section has been quarried away. (2-3)
The hill-fort is situated on a large steep sided chalk outlier. It
consists of a berm and scarp on the N. & W. with short sections of
counterscarp bank at the northern corners. A disused quarry occupies
the south side. A small scarp in the southern half of the E. side
and the gap between it and the NE corner would seem to suggest that
this is an unfinished hill-fort.
Two terraces beginning on steep natural slopes near the bottom of
the hill on the E. side follow an upward curving course and end at the quarry on the S. Because of their proximity to the foot of the hill it is unlikely that these were intended as part of the defences of the hill-fort. They appear to have been cultivated and are most
probably Medieval strip lynchets. See APs.
Resurveyed at 1/2500. (4)
ST 842446 A large annex or enclosure attached to the south east side
of the fort and encompassing the lower ground toward the south east
gate, and evidence of extensive internal house platforms and pits
appears on air photographs taken 1975-7. These are held by
Archaeological Advisors, Park Street, Heytesbury. (5)
ST 839 448. Cley Hill. Listed in gazetteer as a univallate hillfort covering 6.9ha. (6)
Cley Hill has been surveyed by staff of the RCHME Salisbury office as part of a project focussing on the earthworks of South Wiltshire. The following is abstracted from the archive report:
Cley Hill is a univallate hillfort 2.84ha in area, occupying a steep sided outlier of Middle and Upper Chalk. It lies at an altitude of c 240m OD and is c3km W of the western edge of Salisbury Plain. A large chalk quarry has cut into the SW part of the hillside destroying the hillfort rampart in this sector. The defences of this contour hillfort are confused and complex, having been damaged in the recent past by small scale quarrying and slumping. The hilltop has also been ploughed in recent times. The rampart consequently survives now as an external facing lynchet 2.5m high where best preserved on its W side. Here it is separated from a counterscarp feature by a berm 5-10m wide. On this berm traces of an original ditch can be seen.
An entrance gap 10m wide in the course of the denuded rampart is visible on the E side. An internal quarry scoop is evident immediately within the hillfort boundary. Traversing the interior are the remains of a post medieval boundary bank c1m wide and up to 0.5m high, aligned roughly NE-SW. To the E of the hillfort, and 50m downslope from it, is a pair of medieval strip lynchets truncated by quarrying. It is likely that the strip lynchets may be re-using an earlier, pre-existing boundary to an annexe associated with the main hillfort enclosure. APs taken 1975-7 suggest that the area between the hillfort boundary and the strip lynchets is crowded with structural activity including house platforms and pits. Full details of the surveyed earthworks can be found in the archive report. (7)
Scheduled, RSM Number 31693. (8) |