The 1982 season in a few sentences ...

My thanks as usual to the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for their permission to reproduce this abstract from their Proceedings about the 1982 season: "Badgeworth/Coberley, Crickley Hill, SO 927161. During the 14th season of excavation at Crickley work concentrated on the extreme southern end of the Iron Age rampart. Here, the final rampart, stepped at the front in our other cuts, had been only partially rebuilt after the first destruction. Behind the rampart a series of structures was uncovered. The final occupation in this area postdated the final abandonment of the fortifications. Dating evidence is still unclear, but includes three abraded sherds of Roman pottery. A Dark Age occupation cannot be ruled out."

The 1991 season in brief ...

Thanks to the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for permission to reproduce this abstract from their Proceedings relating to the 1991 season: "Coberley, Crickley Hill, Work in 1991 concentrated on three areas: (a) The long mound, where the platform was removed to reveal the road and fences of the Neolithic settlement. (b) The northern side of the Neolithic defences, which proved to be a complex of fences and ditches, with a gap between the village and the banks. (c) The tail of the 1A rampart, which changed its nature on the steep northern side of the hill, and had been constructed as a simple drystone wall without a ditch."

Crickley Hill & Ullenwood Camp map

A section from a 1970s Ramblers' map of the Birdlip area showing Crickley Hill, Ullenwood, Birdlip etc. The detail at Ullenwood looks not quite familiar, if you click on the image and enlarge it, as the building layouts definitely are different on this from when the diggers were all in residence.

Savage 1988: 10 Herdsman and Quarryman

Time for the 10th section of Richard Savage's 1988 booklet: to him and the Crickley Hill Trust thanks for the permission to reproduce.

"10 Herdsman and Quarryman

After the burning of the final dark age settlement the hill reverted to pasture. In the Middle Ages the northern slopes may have served as grazing for Brockworth Parish, whose boundary runs along the crest overlooking Gloucester. A small rectangle of stone-walled building, perhaps a shepherd's shieling, lay just inside the boundary. At about this time the hamlets below the site is first mentioned by name, as Creke in 1237 and Crekelege in c. 1240. The name is understood to mean "clearing (leah) by the hill (*crouc)”. The latter is a British word, and although the eminence became known eventually as Crickley Hill, "the hill of Crickley", it is interesting to note that it seems in our earliest sources simply to have been known by a Celtic name, "the hill". During the 17th century pits for lime burning were opened, destroying about an acre of the prehistoric settlements.

In the next century quarrying began on the slopes, and had produced steep cliffs by the early 19th century. The Iron Age ramparts had already been noticed, and appears as "Roman intrenchment" on the Tithe Map of 1838. The bulk of the site to lay by now in the ownership of Hallingwood (Ullenwood) Farm nearly a mile away. Maps of the holding in 1807 and 1863 revealed the reason of the survival of the archaeological deposits, the arable land of Ullenwood stretched west of the farm as far as Crippets long barrow, and east and south towards Coberley. Crickley was protected by two belts of woodland (Short-wood and Hallingwood) and was used as a rough pasture too far from the farmhouse to be worth ploughing. So it remained, threatened by the quarry on its north flank, in separate annual tenancy from the lords of Badgeworth Manor, but not devastated by agriculture. Quarry workings slackened in the 1930s, and ended in the 1960s, shortly before the beginning of excavations.

[Photo: a 17th century pit for lime burning]"

TBGAS about the 1987 season

Courtesy of the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society the note on the 1987 season which reads as follows: "COBERLEY/BADGEWORTH, Crickley Hill, SO 927161. Work in the 19th season of excavations concentrated on the slopes of the knoll (originally, wrongly, by CHM's inattention to proof-reading, novel) of the Neolithic settlement, and on the Long Mound.  The latter was found to be even more complex than previously realised, with an additional phase of slabs, and an earlier phase of underlying uprights or markers below the mound.  The slopes, too, proved complex and provided evidence from series of platforms beside a least three, and perhaps four, rows of small pits, some of which contained deposits of cremated human bones."

Professor Dixon observes: "I fear that CHM has bumped his head as well as his poorly shoulder, since even my old eyes detect the word as ‘knoll’ rather than ‘novel’; but perhaps all this swashbuckling romance has led him into contemplation of another Captain Lash, involving perhaps bondage in the New Stone Age……? Knollvelists with pens please step forward."

Witts's Ancient Camps - Crickley Camp

An extract from the Archaeological Handbook of the County of Gloucester by George Witts published by G. Norman, Clarence Street Cheltenham, n.d. (1883):

"No. 34. — Crickley Hill Camp.

This lies one mile north of the village of Birdlip, in the parish of Cubberley, and four miles south of Cheltenham. It is protected by a mound and ditch running across the projecting height in a slightly curved line, with a second mound and ditch running parallel to the main one, and 100 yards from it. The remaining three sides of the camp are protected by the precipitous nature of the hill. The area defended is about nine acres, and the earthworks still remaining show what an important position it must have been. On the high ground to the east of the camp the defences are much stronger than they are on the lower ground as they approach the escarpment. Unlike most other camps in the county, this has a perfect entrance, defended by an advanced bank and ditch; and in the immediate neighbourhood are six round barrows and one fine long barrow. 

See "Archaeologia," vol. XIX, p170, also "Proceedings Cott. Nat. Field Club," vol. VI, p210 and also "Transactions Bristol and Glou. Archae. Soc.," 1879-80, p206."