Beacons in the Landscape

The Hillforts of England and Wales

Ian Brown

• Publisher: Windgather Press
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781909686250
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Of all Britain's great archaeological monuments the Iron Age hillforts have arguably had the most profound impact on the landscape, if only because there are so many; yet we know very little about them. Were they recognised as being something special by those who created them or is the 'hillfort' purely an archaeologists' 'construct'? How were they constructed, who lived in them and to what uses were they put? This book, which is richly illustrated with photography of sites throughout England and Wales, addresses these and many other questions. After discussing the difficult issue of definition and the great excavations on which our knowledge is based, Ian Brown investigates in turn hillforts' origins, their architecture, and the role they played in Iron Age society. He also discusses the latest theories about their location, social significance and chronology. The book provides a valuable synthesis of the rich vein of research carried out in Britain on hillforts over the last thirty years. Hillforts' great variability poses many problems, and this book should help guide both the specialist and non-specialist alike though the complex literature. Furthermore, it has an important conservation objective. Land use in the modern era has not been kind to these monuments, with a significant number either disfigured or lost. Public consciousness of their importance needs raising if their management is to be improved and their future assured.

Part 1

THE ‘ELUSIVE’ HILLFORT

CHAPTER ONE

Hillforts – an introduction

The context

Occurring, for the most part, in well-defined areas of England, Wales and the Isle of Man, hillforts remain one of the most common archaeological monuments. Despite being the subject of interest to antiquarian investigators since at least the seventeenth century, and major advances in archaeological thought ever since, they are still little understood. Perhaps this is because of their large size and difficulty in excavating as a result, or possibly because of their inherent diversity of form and probable function; there are indeed many questions to answer. It would be wrong to call them ‘settlements’ per se – they were much more than that and were no doubt considered as ‘something special’ by their creators. Their inherent variability and undoubted prominence in the landscape suggest a deliberate act, and something over and above a simple farm or enclosure that was, probably, the norm in the late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British landscape. They have been overshadowed in the public psyche by the great henges, the later medieval castles and historic houses, but hillforts are of equal importance to the national heritage. Regretfully, land use has not been kind to hillforts, and not many sites have escaped some form of disfigurement during the modern era, some major sites being destroyed completely.

The ‘elusive’ hillfort

Before we look at what a hillfort actually is, let us first look at a distribution pattern of what may be involved in England, Wales and the Isle of Man (Figure 2). They cover most of southern England, from Cornwall and Devon, then across Wessex to Sussex. Many are to be found in Somerset and along the River Severn estuary to Gloucestershire, extending up the Welsh Marches and western Midlands into Wales, where they occupy most of the areas outside of the high central Cambrian core. The Bath area and Oxfordshire and Warwickshire have notable examples. To the east, in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, numbers decline, with a few on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens and in Norfolk and Suffolk. Numbers increase in Essex but drop again in Surrey and eastern Kent. To the north Midlands and north-west, Derbyshire and Cheshire have significant numbers, the latter along the sandstone ridge, becoming less frequent in Lancashire and the Lake District periphery. To the north-east, Yorkshire has few, if spectacular examples, but the many clusters of sites in Northumberland have, perhaps, more in common with those across the border in southern Scotland. In effect, apart from Northumberland, there is a distinct bias towards southern and western areas. Apart from a few notable exceptions the forts of the Isle of Man are mostly coastal. Certainly, the numbers of hillforts are daunting. Hogg, in his 1979 index of hillfort sites (pp. 1–5), listed 3,840 sites in Britain as being: ‘enclosures with substantial defences, usually on high ground and probably built between 1000 BC and AD 700, but showing no significant Roman influence’. His invaluable inventory included ‘related structures’ as well as ‘hillforts’, and it is implicit that an unspecified number ‘merely acted as homesteads’ or something similar.

FIGURE 2. Distribution of confirmed and possible hillforts in England, Wales and the Isle of Man.

PAULA LEVICK – ATLAS OF HILLFORTS IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

The Atlas of Hillforts in Britain and Ireland project, running from 2012 to 2017, is referred to in the Notes on page xv and is the latest attempt at determining the number and character of hillforts in the British Isles. The overall criteria used for hillfort definition in this study was of sites with potentially substantial defences in a prominent location with an area of not less than 0.2 ha, with two of these required as a base. Because of problems involved in definition at some sites, three degrees of certainty were used: ‘confirmed’, ‘unconfirmed’ and ‘irreconcilable issues’. That is not to say that inclusion in these two latter categories meant that such sites were not hillforts as such, but that certain problems of definition should be recognised. It is not intended to go into any detail on this (see Lock 2019 and Ralston 2019), but, for the purposes of this book, ‘confirmed’ and ‘possible’ categories will be used to cover these alternatives. Thus, with these varying degrees of certainty, in 2017 a total of 4,127 hillforts were recorded in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man, with 1,225 being located in England, 690 in Wales and 30 in the Isle of Man. Of this 1,945 total, 878 were ‘confirmed’ hillforts according to the Atlas criteria in England, 626 in Wales and 22 in the Isle of Man. Hillforts are still being found as our knowledge increases, and some others now proven to be just ‘figments of imagination’, but how a ‘hillfort’ is defined, as opposed to other forms of enclosure, has taxed archaeologists for years.

When looking at hillforts ‘in the round’, it appears just how immensely complex they are, and how difficult it is to define what a hillfort actually is. This may seem a basic question, but one that still remains to be answered. Any definition must encompass not only the physical nature of these vast monuments (their place in the landscape, topography, earthwork or stone wall, form etc), but also the social, political and economic make-up of the people involved, their beliefs, customs, superstitions and rituals, and the timescale and possible function of these sites.

In general terms, therefore, what were the Ages of the Hillfort? Is anything clear-cut? The answer is probably ‘no’, as the debate as to whether there was continuity or change at the end of the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age has continued for some time. The latter has tended to hold sway, no doubt to differing degrees about the country, but ‘Bronze Age’ and ‘Iron Age’ wrongly imply a rigid cut-off point in the use of bronze and start of the use of iron. This is not so, and iron was used for some items before the traditional end of the Ewart Park phase of the Bronze Age and the cessation of bronze hoarding at the end of the ninth century BC. Around 800 BC, however, there appear to have been changes in society manifested in different ceramic forms, metalwork, land use, settlement pattern and belief systems, including grain storage in pits (Haselgrove et al. 2001, 26–7; Haselgrove and Pope 2007, 6). Then, rather than technological advance, the gradual move towards the use of iron appears to have been spurred on by a lack of metal ore generally beginning about 100 BC and resulting in a reduced supply of bronze (Bradley 2007, 227).

Chronologies differ, but a subsequent transitional period (sometimes called the ‘earliest Iron Age’), which may have lasted for several hundred years, is thought to have merged into an ‘early Iron Age’ ending in about 400 BC. Around this time further changes in pottery, settlement pattern, social organisation and land use, again differing from area to area, heralded another transitionary period. The ‘middle Iron Age’ finally lasted to around 100 BC and a ‘late Iron Age’ followed on into the first century AD. By the time of the Roman Conquest of AD 43 various types of enclosure were already a feature of non-Mediterranean continental Europe and Ireland, with an estimated 60,000 now surviving, 20,000–30,000 of which might be considered as hillforts (Ralston 1995, 60; 2006, 16). Some achieved massive proportions, as at Manching in Bavaria, whilst others were very small indeed.

‘Enclosure’ is an ‘architectural’ form, but, because of the inherent diversity of enclosures generally, there are substantial problems where hillforts lie within this form and thereby their subsequent definition (Brown 2019; Lock 2019; Ralston 2019). What are we actually looking at? When an area is enclosed, whether it be by palisade, bank, ditch or wall, or indeed a thorn hedge (Ralston 2006), an area is defined away from the outside world, so providing a ‘defensible’ space in the interior, and giving to those in this interior, whether it be community or individual unit, a sense of security and ownership. It is being increasingly felt by archaeologists that ‘enclosure’ was a complex process having multiple connotations and serving different purposes at different times and places in later prehistory and early history (Harding 2004, 298). Such purposes could have been social, economic, political or ritual in nature, or a combination of all of these; all would have been very significant to the people concerned. The basis of hillfort design, therefore, was that, by enclosing a site, a special place was defined, distinct from the outside world; the surrounding banks possibly themselves imbued with, or imbued an interior with, symbolic powers.

It is inevitable, therefore, that there will be a ‘continuum’ of sites (Wigley 2007b); from a space defined by purely a small ditch, to one with large and multiple banks and ditches; but where along this continuum do we place ‘hillforts’ and which enclosures are actually hillforts and which are not? Cunliffe (2006, 154) puts it succinctly that ‘there may be no such thing as a typical hillfort’. Opinions differ between researchers.

There is also the small enclosures problem: as sites get smaller so the scope for confusion increases, Carver (1991, 4) pointing out for lowland Shropshire that the variety of enclosures ‘does not divide easily into “hillfort” and “lowland farm”’. In Pembrokeshire many univallate sites under 1 ha in area, commonly called ‘hillforts’, are manifestly not. Most are the ‘raths’ (small ‘defended’ settlements or farmsteads), common to the area and located in lowland situations on better soils. Similar enclosures are located in south-west England, and especially Cornwall where there are nearly 2,000 of these ‘rounds’. Although the best known of these small enclosures in Pembrokeshire is the excavated Iron Age Walesland Rath near Haverfordwest (Wainwright 1969; 1971), there are literally thousands of small defended enclosures in south-west Wales, some rectangular in outline, some round, many now just crop marks, and most showing few, if any, artefacts on excavation (Harold Mytum pers. comm. 2007). The small sites of north-west Wales, some less than 0.1 ha in extent, often perched on prominent craggy outcrops, and sites in the Lake District in similar positions, also pose problems of definition. Former surveys by the Royal Commission in the Llŷn peninsula of Caernarfonshire also suggest a variety of smaller sites. Yet many of the above are called ‘hillforts’ in common parlance.

Such is the situation in the Cheviot Hills, Oswald and Pearson (2005, 119–20) question whether Yeavering Bell may be the only ‘true’ hillfort in Northumberland. Many ‘hillforts’ there enclose less than 0.1–0.5 ha, but small defensive enclosures, such as those at Dod Law and others surrounding the Milfield Plain show hillfort characteristics in terms of both location and landscape prominence. Nevertheless, the complexity of these sites and the nature of the kinship or other groups that occupied them has been the subject of substantial project work.

‘Ringforts’ are another case in point and the Llawhaden group of enclosed settlements in Carmarthenshire includes examples (Williams and Mytum 1998). Typically, a weak defensive position has a strong univallate defensive bank and ditch, the interior containing up to half-a-dozen roundhouses in less than half a hectare, as at Dan y Coed and Woodside. Similar sites are found from Glamorgan to the upper Severn and into northern England. Again, ringforts have often been defined as hillforts in the past but are now better looked upon as ‘defended farmsteads’.

Inevitably small enclosures have very variable characteristics, and those of the central Marches, which Wigley (2007b) calls ‘non-hillfort’ or ‘small settlement’ enclosures, are well explained – some are on hilltops, some on hillslopes and others on the valley floor. High-status living is indicated at Collfryn in Montgomeryshire (Britnell 1989), Bryn Eryr on Anglesey (Longley 1998), and Castell Odo on the Llŷn peninsula in north-west Wales (Alcock 1960). On the other hand, the small stone-walled enclosure of Bryn y Castell, Ffestiniog, with cobbled yard and circular hut, was a much more frugal affair (Crew 1984; 1986). A parallel situation occurs in north-west England, where the difference between enclosed farmsteads of generally under 1 ha (the majority of sites) and small hillforts ‘becomes an issue of semantics’ (Harding 2004, 50). A wide variety of other examples are coming to light nationwide, as in the ‘rounds’ of Somerset.

Whatever the case, as suggested above, these small farmstead and settlement enclosures would have formed the most numerous features of the late Bronze and Iron Age landscapes, but most would have been very different from the dominating hillforts (we will look at hillfort size in Chapter 4), which are certainly a ‘step up’ in character, and have been interpreted by Cunliffe (1991, 312) as ‘representing a level of social organization above that of the farmstead or hamlet and may legitimately be considered as a separate phenomenon’. Undoubtedly, for some sites, things are more diffuse, one form merging into another, but size alone cannot be the overriding factor when defining hillforts. As a ‘rule of thumb’, hillforts can be recognised as being located in commanding, controlling and strategic positions in the landscape and exhibit substantial and often massive defences, but within this ‘definition’ are wide variations.

Considering the above, the question must be asked, when and out of what, did hillforts evolve. Dating evidence tends to be diffuse and can be unreliable, especially in earlier investigations. In Britain, hilltops appeared to exert a magnetic pull for enclosure during the Neolithic and this trend continued into the Bronze Age. In southern England a series of ‘hilltop enclosures’ appeared, and lengths of earthwork defined large areas of upland, possibly for communal gatherings or storage, with or without ritual intent, as exemplified by the earlier Neolithic causewayed enclosures. Harrow Hill in Sussex, for example (the site of extensive Neolithic flint mines (Curwen and Curwen 1926)), showed much animal bone when excavated, possibly serving as a central facility for the scattered farms at the base of the hill, perhaps for slaughtering. Rams Hill in Berkshire, Highdown Hill and Harting Beacon in Sussex, Norton Fitzwarren in Somerset and Bathampton Down in the Avon Valley near Bath could have performed similar functions, and these will all be returned to in more detail in Chapter 3 when we look at ‘hillfort beginnings’.

Other lengths of earthwork enclosed substantial areas of flat upland by cutting off spurs, these sometimes called ‘plateau enclosures’, as at Cold Kitchen Hill in Wiltshire and Butser Hill in Hampshire. In the Long Mynd of Shropshire, some sites are associated with the extensive cross-dyke systems of the central Marches, and were possibly similar pastoral enclosures used for gathering, shearing, culling and general husbandry, possibly using portable hurdles (Guilbert 1976).

These earlier hilltop and plateau enclosures dating to the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, together with the earlier still Neolithic ‘tor enclosures’ of the south-west, are better seen as an earlier type of enclosure. Some developed into later hillforts, as at Rams Hill and Highdown Hill, for example, whereas others, as at Harting Beacon, did not. Therefore, to define an enclosure, just because it is located on a hilltop and of some size, as a ‘hillfort’ per se, is erroneous and ignores the complexities involved in hillfort definition.

The hillforts seen dominating the landscape today, as at the rocky Carn Ingli in Pembrokeshire (Figure 3), are characterised by enclosing ‘defences’ (‘ramparts’), of bank or stone wall, with or without a ditch, which can occur singly, the so-called ‘univallate’ sites, or in greater multiples, the ‘multivallate’ sites, double defences sometimes being called ‘bivallate’. The simpler univallate type does not necessarily signify an earlier design; multivallation was a feature of some early hillforts, such as Danebury in Hampshire and Rainsborough in Northamptonshire. However, to categorise hillforts by these rampart sequences is to ignore their complexity, as both single and multiple sections can be found ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements to first edition
• Acknowledgements to second edition
• Notes
• Preface
• Part 1 The ‘elusive’ hillfort
• Part 2 Defining the space
• Part 3 Hillfort and society
• Part 4 Hillforts – function and social significance
• Bibliography