Iron Age Wall

A further section of the public information board reads as follows: "Iron Age Wall. You are looking out over the south eastern sector of the Iron Age Wall. It was originally built about 700BC to defend the Long House Village and made from stone dug out from the ditch in front of it which itself served a defensive purpose. The wall was deliberately burned along with the village. About 500BC, on the establishment of the Round House Village, it was rebuilt and enlarged with new stonework to make a defence 5 or 6 metres high. Like its predecessor, this had a walkway along the top defended by a palisade with another ledge lower down. The purpose of the ledge is not clear; it may have been structural. The stone for rebuilding was gained by widening the old ditch and opening new quarry pits in the interior."

Given that the board is now located within the entrance to the fort since the platform was destroyed, you're not looking out over anything any more: you're looking at the north end of the south rampart section but I don't suppose either the grockles or Gloucestershire County Council care about such minor inaccuracies.

Going going gone around the corner

A digger scoots past his fellow diggers and corners at speed in this pair of photos from Lydia Savage. These are from 1972, as can be seen from the fine selection of Iron Age long house postholes on the cutting in the foreground. The team in the early seasons was small and so was the early prototype shelter, which looks as though it has had the worst of an argument with the wind.

Back to 1972 ...

A peaceful scene from 1972 on Clive Anderson's cutting, kindly supplied by Lydia Savage. This must have been exactly the phase when the large postholes for the Iron Age longhouses and roundhouses were emerging. Let's hope the digger sitting on the edge of the cutting wasn't as miserable as her hunched outline suggests. This picture is looking southeast towards the southern section of the Iron Age rampart.

Begin at the beginning ...

This must have been taken on lorry day or thenabouts in 1993 by Lara Unger, as she shows the site huts lying on the ground, just before being put up. On the right of the hut sections can be seen the tops of the blue posts, inserted into the ground to mark the position of the postholes of the Iron Age longhouses.

Crickley Hill postholes spoil you for life ...

Andrew Powell fears this photo may not be rivetting, but I think he undersells it: plainly it is a thing of beauty: "I found this photo of a posthole, I imagine from a 1972 longhouse. I may have taken the photo to record my excavation of my first ever posthole, well supervised in the process, I remember, by Chris Gingell. Of course, Crickley Hill postholes spoil you for life and I have never come across the like since, I remember being amazed by the precision with which the limestone seemed to have been sliced through like butter." Top class digger's crumpet, if you ask me.

Iron Age Longhouse 1972

From the rampart looking west north west across the rather fine postholes of an Iron Age longhouse towards the splendid view: a 1972 season picture from Andrew Powell's archive. The turf walls must have been very satisfactory for leaning against during tea and lunch breaks.

Savage 1988: 7. The Long House Village

65 years ago this morning were the Allied landings in Normandy, warfare on a scale unimaginable to the men and women who inhabited Crickley Hill more than 2500 years ago. Doubtless war then was as terrifying but necessary to endure as it was for our parents and grandparents.  The destruction of the Iron Age ramparts of the longhouse village described in the following section from Richard Savage's 1988 booklet must have been a frightening sight. Thanks, as ever, to Richard and the Crickley Hill Trust for permission to reproduce the abstracts from his booklet.

"7 The Long House Village 

The First Hill-fort c. 700 - 600 BC 

At a time when the climate had deteriorated - it seems to have become very like our own - the hill was permanently occupied again in the 7th or 6th centuries BC.  This was the time of the development of a full iron-using economy in Britain; indeed we cannot at present be certain whether the new community at Crickley was iron- or still bronze-using.  It is hard to see any continuity of tradition between the builders of the hillfort and the worshippers who had gone before.  Even the final Neolithic wall, almost as far in the past to them as they are to us, was scarcely visible. 

The newcomers built long timber houses, aligned upon a street running east west along the top of the saddle at the eastern part of the hill.  Four-post structures, some of them at least for grain storage, lay in a ring outside the houses.  The bridge was defended by a stone wall, reinforced with timber lacing, which ran right around the promontory enclosing 9 acres.  The wall was most substantially built to the east, where attackers could approach across level ground, and an imposing appearance would have most effect.  Here it may have reached 4m high, with the ditch outside it, from which the stone was quarried, adding to its effective height.  A walkway along the top, with a bridge across the entrance, allow the defenders to keep watch, to parade their valour, and to cluster where they were most needed during an assault.  Deposits of sling stones lay near to hand, useful for discouraging animal and human predators alike.  Timber towers, arranged at intervals behind the rampart, seem to have provided viewing or fighting platforms for the slingers. 

[Photograph: the largest longhouse.  Part of the roof is unthatched to show the construction.  There is a smoke hole in the gable. J Eltham] 

[Illustration: The long house village, c 700 - 600 BC K. Hajichristou] 

The village housed, perhaps, a hundred souls.  We can imagine them a little more clearly than their Neolithic predecessors, because in later centuries Greek and Roman writers describe barbarian societies like theirs, which shared much with the literate Mediterranean world; a cart made in Greece or Italy could be mended without difficulty -- perhaps improved -- in Gaul or Britain.  They are likely to have thought of themselves as members of the great family, with relatives in other settlements, and many of them will actually have been more or less closely related to one another, although there are likely to have been "foreigners" among them.  The power structure of their society may be guessed at.  They were probably governed by the dominant member of a single kindred.  Such a man or woman must decided the arrangements of the settlement at Crickley; the site has very long and strong defences in comparison with a few houses inside it, and the granaries are too numerous merely to hold the produce of the occupants of the houses.  The site seems to be a citadel for the elite of the society most of whose members lived outside, some of them perhaps in the Vale. 

We do not know what language they spoke.  It is possible that it was already one of the Celtic family of languages, to which modern Welsh and Irish belong. 

Like most hill-forts, Crickley lacks an internal water-supply.  The spring line is 60 m below the settlement, and there is no evidence for well-digging or pond making on the site.  The cattle will have been watered at springs outside, where also the human community will have done most of its washing and only a minimum of water needed to be carried up.  The village could not have stood a siege; sieges are almost unknown in primitive warfare, which is centred about the raid and the short campaign, even when it is set reassuringly within a hereditary feud. 

The new community farmed the surrounding land, probably in small squarish fields whose boundaries, obliterated by modern agriculture, we do not now know.  Their animals and crops were fundamentally those of their Neolithic predecessors - wheat, barley, cattle, sheep, pigs - though in improved breeds and probably using improved methods. 

It is likely that there were undefended Iron Age settlements nearby; they are not always easy to find.  A sight of this kind in the lowland is suspected Sandy Lane, Cheltenham, that we do not yet know certainly of any near Crickley. If we knew how these undefended sites and the adjacent hillfort worked together, much of the character of late Bronze Age and Iron Age society would be clear.  At present we do not know whether they were occupied by members of the same rank in society nor how far their functions were different.  In most cases we do not even know whether they were in strictly contemporary use. 

The settlement was attacked, captured, then thoroughly and expertly destroyed.  In a strong west winds the rear facing of its wall was torn down and brushwood piled against the expose structured to fire the reinforcing beams.  So intense was the heat is that much of the limestone of the wall was turned to quicklime. 

[Illustration: section through the final Iron Age defences: the core of burned and slaked limestone, with the remains of vertical timbers just visible, and the new wall, in two tiers, built over and in front of it]"

Fourth Report, 1972: Part V

 Click on image to enlarge

Today, with thanks to PWD for permission, the final part of the Fourth Report from 1972:

"The Period 3 Settlement

The Period 2 settlement was destroyed by fire, presumably at the same time as the burning of the Period 2 defences.  Before the laying of the Period 3b road surface a large roundhouse was built across the western end of House 2.  The post circle of this house was 11.6 m in diameter, but outside it, to the north, perhaps platform formed a shelf about 3 cm higher than the surrounding bedrock; this shelf, produced by traffic wear around the house, ran from 1.7 m to 2.4 m outside the circle; on the south side a burnt streak and clusters of burnt daub continued the line, which is taken to represent a wattled partition framed, like those of the Period 2 houses, on sleeper beams resting on the ground surface.  The porch lay on the west side, facing away from the entrance to the hillfort, and appears to have been supported by diagonal braces set in slots.

The total diameter of the roundhouse was about 14.8 m.  A number of post holes whose dating is uncertain lay within the circle.  Some may belong to partitions at the west end of House 2 of Period 2: postholes 522, 541 and 542 probably associated with the roundhouse, but none were substantial enough to have held up the roof.  No central support was possible, for a hearth lay in the middle of the house, and while roof supporting posts might have rested on the ground surface (producing a tower-like structure similar to that proposed for Little Woodbury roundhouse (Bersu, 1940) no evidence of this is likely to be forthcoming.  Like the roundhouses of similar size, and apparently similar construction, at Pimperne or Longbridge Deveril, the roof construction of the Crickley roundhouse is problematic.

To the south west of House 4 two small hearths were surrounded by clusters of small postholes.  Further holes, both small and large, lay to the south of the roundhouse and to the north of House 1.  For none are there adequate grounds to allow period attribution, and all are shown in figure 5 as of uncertain period.  The excellent preservation of the hearths might suggest ascription to the final phase of occupation, and this, more tentatively, might be indicated by the undue proximity of one of the structures to the front of House 5.  The post holes around hearth 801 could be seen as a trapezoidal building: heavy burning to the south of the hearth had reduced the bedrock to quicklime, an intense heat that suggests some industrial function from the building.  The internal post holes were perhaps to support a frame around hearth itself.  No clear pattern can be made of the post holes in other areas, and, as flimsy shelters, drying racks or similar two or more pos-structures, some may belong to the Period 2 and others too are shown for convenience, on the Period 3 plan (figure 6).

If the Period 3a defences are correctly interpreted as a temporary re-fortification of the hilltop after the Period 2 destruction (Dixon, 1970), the roundhouse may have been built during Period a 3a.  It was burnt down during the destruction of the 3b and  defences, and the site was then abandoned.

Discussion

The decorated sherds of fine fabric with incised linear ornament (illustrated and described in Dixon, 1971) which came from the info of the latest rampart (Period 3b) are now closely matched by pottery from the postholes of the Period 2 roundhouse.  Almost all the material from the Period 2 post holes, however, consists of sherds of coarse fabric with sagging shoulders and irregular rims; the only decorated sherd comes from the post-pipes of the five-post  structure between Houses 1 and 3, and presumably  relates to the period after the Period 2 settlement. 

This break in the ceramic tradition, whatever interpretation be put upon it, should therefore be placed between Period 2 and Period 3a, a period which saw the change from longhouse to roundhouse, and also from daub filled with grit to clean sifted daub in the wattling of these buildings.

Comparanda for the pottery should be treated with caution in view of the paucity of the material.  The closest parallels for the sherds of the latest period appear to come from the Upper Thames (references given in Dixon 1971), in context now ascribed to the initial stages of the Iron Age and dated not later than the sixth century BC (Harding, 1972).  The cultural context of the longhouses is at present quite uncertain.  Analysis of strata deposited by erosion between Period 2 and Period 3a indicated no considerable time-span (Dixon, 1970) but calibration of this in terms of years, decades or even centuries is hardly possible.

The longhouses themselves are of a type seldom recognized in Britain.  At Park Brow in Sussex (Wolseley, 1925) a ten-poster longhouse was associated with Hallstadt pottery, and a very few others have been noticed in Wales, Scotland, and, conjecturally, on the Thames (Harding 1972, pp 34-5) But on the continent the longhouse type, many with evidence of byres as true longhouses is predominant in many areas from the Neolithic onwards.  The discovery of an extensive regularly planned settlement of longhouses at Crickley is thus an unexpected outcome of the 1972 season.  Although the dearth of insular parallels draws attention to origins on the continent, it is any reasonable to suppose that further settlements of this sort still await discovery, on new sites or perhaps even among reports of old excavations.

Future work

In 1973 we shall continue the excavation of the area behind the entrance, and hope to reveal more of both the longhouse and the roundhouse settlements.  The work requires volunteers and adequate financing to augment the generous support of the Gloucestershire College. Donations (to the Crickley Hill Fund) and offers of assistance should be sent to the Secretary of the excavations, Mr.  R. D. A.  Savage, Gloucestershire College of Art and Design,, Cheltenham Glos., GL52 3JG from whom further copies of these notes, and copies of the notes on previous seasons, may be obtained (1969, 15p 1970 and 1971, 25p all plus 5p for postage etc.).  Persons interested in taking part in future seasons of excavation in this series should get in touch with Mr Savage at the address given (telephone Cheltenham 32501).

References

Bersu, 1940: ‘Excavation at Little Woodbury’, Proc. Prehist.Soc. VI

Dixon, 1969, 1970, 1971: 1^st 2^nd and 3^rd interim reports (Gloucestershire College of Art and Design in Cheltenham)

Harding, 1972: The Iron Age in the Upper Thames Basin

Soudsky, 1969: ‘Etude de la maison Neolithique’, Slovenska Archaeologia XVII

Stanford, 1970: ‘Credenhill Camp…’ Arch. Journal CXVII

Waterbolk, 1964: ‘The Bronze Age Settlement of Elp’ Helinium 4

Wolseley et al, 1925: ‘Prehistoric and Roman Settlements on Park Brow’ Archaeologia LXXVI"

The postholes of the longhouses

1972 was the season when a very large area was dug which revealed the Iron Age longhouses' post holes.  They show up perfectly in this photograph of Andrew Powell's, taken from just inside the rampart looking directly west across the cuttings.  One thing that looks faintly curious, to my eye at least, is the proximity of the huts to the cuttings the huts were always erected at some distance from the excavated areas.   For a different perspective on the same cuttings in the same season, see this aerial photograph which I posted in November.

Fourth Report, 1972: part IV

Click on the images to enlarge.

Thank you again to PWD for permission to reproduce abstracts from the Fourth Report for 1972.

"Reconstruction of the Period 2 Houses

The Period 2 hollow way narrowed where it ran between Houses 1 and 2, and came no closer than 1.5m to the lines of posts.  The traffic was presumably here being funnelled by a barrier, and it thus seems likely that the outer walls of the houses lay the beyond the lines of the post holes, which thus formed internal supports of the roof structure.  Absence of post holes for such an outer wall creates no difficulties, for the problems, experimentally observed, during the course of our excavations, of cutting small post holes in the oolite might well induce even builders accustomed to earth-fast posts to rely on walling framed on sleeper beams.  In House 5 two post holes in this outer position can be seen as additional evidence for a framed exterior wall: House 5 had no other postholes in this position and the two outer holes perhaps supported a special structure -- the largest house having the most imposing facade.  Between House 1 and House 3 a small square structure with a central posthole, perhaps to support a raised floor, projected beyond the lines of postholes into the roadway.  As can be seen in figure 6, however, the proposed outer walls of Houses 1 and 3 aligned with the south wall of this square structure, which thus continued the line of the street frontage. 

Suggested reconstructions of the longhouses are shown in figure 7.  The simplest method would probably have been to fit horizontal timbers (aisle plates) between the aisle posts on the longitudinal axes of the houses; as at Stonehenge, a plain mortice-and-tenon joint would suffice to join aisle post to aisle plate.  Reconstruction 2 shows one such interpretation with the addition of a substantial outer turf wall to support the ends of a common rafter roof.  Considerable quantities of burned daub from wattling were found around the houses and in the postholes.  This suggests that the outer walls were merely wattled screens, but these could conveniently have been framed on sleeper beams and could, even without earth-fast posts, have supported considerable weight.  But it is noticeable that the post-settings are paired symmetrically, and this suggests an alternative more complex upper structure.  The aisle posts could have been held together by tie-beams across the width of the house and the roof supported on couples at about 10’ centres.  Such a structure - a principal rafter roof - is shown in Reconstruction 1 and in the perspective and axonometric drawings in figure 7. Further elaboration of the roof structure is too hypothetical, but could include bracing and crown posts on the tie-beams.

House 1 and House 7 (see figure 3) preserved evidence of centrally placed hearth, and other houses may have been similarly heated.  The hearth in House 1 survived merely as the circle of scorched bedrock, and the erosion in other areas could easily have removed the evidence of fire. 

The hollow way continued as far as the end of the second bay of houses one and two.  No further trace of it could be found, and it is therefore possible that the entrances to these longhouses were lateral (see cover drawing).  At the east end of House 4 an additional posthole, 811, may have been for a gable door.  Apart from a streak of burning which might indicate that a porch stood on the north side of bay five in House 5, there was no other evidence for door positions, and there is so far very little trace of the subdivisions that are found in comparable structures on the continent of Europe (e.g. Waterbolk, 1964)."

The First Hillfort

Again, by kind permission of Professor Dixon: the continuation of the First Hillfort at Crickley section of "Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory", the first part of which was posted here:

"Continental scholars have traced the growth of strongly fortified hill-settlements from 1200 BC onwards.  In Britain the development came later, with C14 dates not earlier than the 11th or 10th centuries BC, and most of the hillfort foundation-dates belong to the later period, to the three or four centuries after 700 BC. The first fort at Crickley was built early in this latter period perhaps in the 7^th or 6^th century.  The new rampart and ditch enclosed an area of some nine acres, more than double that of the causewayed enclosure, and provided a substantial barrier with a rock-cut ditch 2 m (6 ft) deep, and a drystone wall built of the stone taken from it at least 3 m (10 ft) high.  The entrance was a narrow timber-lined passage shut by two gates, and the defences were presumably capped by timber or wickerwork screens. 

Behind the entrance roadway ran between lines of buildings whose position is now marked only by the post holes in which their principal upright timbers were set.  Beside the roadway the buildings were probably large rectangular barn-like houses, and two more houses of this sort lay in the area of the abandoned near the enclosure - one, indeed, along the line of its ditch, as can be seen in the reconstruction drawing (figure 2).  Groups of small square huts, each supported on four posts, stood around the houses. 

None contained hearths, and they were probably intended for the storage of crops.  More irregular collections of post holes may have belonged to subsidiary buildings, such as drying racks, animal pens, hovels for farm implements, all roofed stack stands.  A variety of these structures is shown in the two reconstruction drawings of the hillfort periods, (figures 2 and 3) but there is, of course, no certainty in any of the versions adopted.

The houses so far uncovered (in about one third of the fort's total area) could perhaps have accommodated from 50 to 200 people: there is no way of estimating the density of settlement in the unexcavated area.  This community survived long enough to wear down the entrance roadway, but had gone, it seems, before the replacement of rotten timber in its houses became necessary: one generation, then, or two at the most.  The end was clearly abrupt.  The gates were burned, the walls slighted, and the houses destroyed by fire."

Fourth Report 1972, part III: The Interior of the Hillfort 1972

(click on the images to enlarge)

Thank you as ever to PWD for permission to post these abstracts from his 1972 Fourth Report. I'm afraid the Albergo Parker is not equipped with an A3 scanner so each A4 page has to be scanned and posted separately:

"An area 80 m long and up to 40 m broad was stripped behind the entrance passage (cuttings BI - BXII).  Stratigraphy in this area was slight, in many places less than 5 cm between turf and bedrock, but a number of the 180 postholes uncovered here can be placed in relative sequence: near the centre of the excavated area postholes 472 cut into and was later than a large posthole; further southwards posthole 529 - 534 were cut into a layer of small packed stones which sealed the tops of posthole's 544 - 547 and 516.  Postholes 529 - 534 formed part of an almost perfect post circle, whose postholes must be seen from their regularity as contemporary; it does not therefore follow that the postholes stratified earlier in the sequences were all of the same date, but this conclusion is indicated by the consistency of their layout: almost all formed pairs from 2 1/2 metres to 3.3 m apart, with similar spacing between the pairs.  

The structures represented by both these groups of postholes may be tied in with the phasing of the rampart.  Within the inturned entrance of the timber-laced rampart (Period 2) the excavations in 1970 exposed a hollow way, produced by traffic wear.  This hollowing continued on the axis of the passage to run between the alignments produced by the pairs of (earlier) post holes.  During Period 3b a cobbled road was laid against the entrance bastions and could be followed running into the interior of the hillfort.  These cobbles overlay the structures identified in figure 5 as "House 2" and "House 6", but curved to avoid the post circle, which must therefore have been in existence in Period 3b.  In the case of the rows of postholes to the west of the post circle (Houses 3, 4 and 5) no evidence of phasing was uncovered, but their alignment corresponded quite closely with that of Houses 1, 2 and 6, and all are thus assumed to form part of one settlement, whose plan consisted of houses set on either side of the road away from the Period 2 entrance.  None of the settings were completely regular.  House 2 and House 5 in particular contained pairs more widely spaced the other postholes in the group and House 3 and House 4 each had a pair of post holes stepped southwards of the general alignment. Post pipe packings survived in many of these post holes, and showed that the post might be placed eccentrically in the hole to compensate the irregularities in the spacing, but even this was not always sufficient to produce a straight row of posts.  Each could thus be argued that some or all of the "houses" shown in figure 5 were in fact separate contiguous buildings, perhaps of four or six posts as identified on a number of Iron Age sites (Stanford, 1970).  But between each "house" lay gaps greater than the spacing of pairs within each of the "houses": these gaps, together with the close correspondence in overall alignment within each "house" group in contrast with slight variations in direction between groups, make such a suggestion implausible.  Indeed, it has recently been argued that such variations in direction and construction within a single structure may indicate variations of function within the building - between house and byre, or between single and double storeyed portions of the house (Soudsky, 1969).  Arguments as to whether all the longhouses attributed to Period 2 were in fact strictly contemporary cannot be satisfactorily resolved: none of the buildings overlapped, and the suggested plan of the settlement (figure 6) reveals a regularity in the layout which very strongly indicates that all the longhouses were designed to form a single coherent settlement."

Article from Gloucestershire and Avon Life July 1983

The following article, written by Richard Savage, was published in the now defunct "Gloucestershire and Avon Life" in July 1983.

" Fifteenth season at Crickley Hill.  Richard Savage issues an invitation to one and all to visit the Country Park that is the focal point of one of the region's most intriguing long-term archaeological digs.

On July 15 volunteers from all over the world will begin the 15th season of archaeological excavation at Crickley Hill, 4 miles south of Cheltenham.

The site is now a Country Park, a promontory of the Cotswolds Scarp with breathtaking views over the Severn Vale and into Wales.  Its prehistoric settlements are clearly marked, access and parking are easy, and visitors to the excavation of welcome during the hours of work 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, including Saturdays and Sundays, but not Thursdays.  Ask at the finds hut if you would like a guided tour.

The season runs until August 25, and visitors are particularly welcome on the open days, Saturday and Sunday, August 13 and 14, when extra attractions are provided. The trust's splendid new mobile exhibition coach will be there at weekends.

As before the team of volunteers will be led by Dr Philip Dixon of the University of Nottingham. All are unpaid - in fact most pay for their own food - and while their ages range from 14 to 70, the majority are between 16 and 25.  More than 2000 have now worked at the site, the archaeological importance of which has attracted them from most of the countries in the Western World, and several from the Eastern bloc was well.  

Since 1976 their work has been sponsored and organised by the Crickley Hill Trust, an educational charity which must find the difference between volunteers' contributions and the true cost of the excavations.  The trust believes that the project offers an invaluable experience of physically and intellectually demanding teamwork, with important scientific results.

The first 14 years of work has shown an extraordinary series of settlements on the site, with great deal of Gloucestershire's past represented there.  Its earliest occupants were neolithic (New Stone Age) farmers, about 3500 BC, using only stone and flint tools.  They built rectangular timber houses on the hill in an enclosure defended by stone walls and ditches.

Their successors - about 2000 BC - were protected by a far stronger and better planned defences, but these did not avail them: they were attacked by bowmen, whose flint arrowheads are found concentrated along the walls and in the entrance, giving a dramatic picture of a New Stone Age battle which is at present unique.  The attackers were victorious, and the walls were destroyed.

After their destruction, a long earthen mound was built, incorporating at regular intervals flat slabs of stone, some of which cover deposits - presumably sacrificial - of butchered meat.  The Long Mound seems to have been used as a source of processional way, perhaps religious.

There are only hints of human activity on the hill from then until the beginning of the Iron Age, when, about 600 BC, a substantial village of long timber houses was built and defended by majestic stone wall and ditch.  This, too, was destroyed after a battle, and replaced by a village of round houses, with defences rebuilt and strengthened.  In its turn, this was destroyed and abandoned about 500 BC.  Even in periods not notable for their tranquillity, Crickley Hill seems to have had more than its fair share of violence.

Until 1982, the destruction of this second Iron Age village seemed to mark the end of permanent occupation on the hill.  But last year excavation just inside the Iron Age wall at its southern end showed that a small village, probably of earth houses, had huddled there after the end of the Roman occupation of Britain.  It is one of the windiest and least sheltered parts of the hill, and there must have been a compelling reason for the villagers to avoid more comfortable areas. Perhaps they chose to place least visible from the Vale, at a time of lawlessness and hunger when a few hovels or even a wisp of smoke might have invited attack.

In the coming season Dr Dixon and his team intend to examine this post-Roman settlement further, to establish its date and nature.  They will also investigate the Long Mound, in the hope of finding out more about the date and purpose of this odd structure, at the point where it crosses the ditch and bank of the first New Stone Age enclosure.

With the help of sponsors, the trust has fitted out the mobile exhibition to make the results of the work easily available to schools and the public.  In scale models, photographs, drawings and finds from the site, the exhibition shows the successive occupations on the hill and the archaeological methods used to examine them.  It has proved very popular at schools, and is a big attraction at charity fairs, fêtes and similar events.  If you would like it to visit you, contact the author, Richard Savage, at Jarolen House, Old Rectory Close, Walkley Hill, Stroud, GL53 3TY."  

(The captions to the photographs read as follows: (Top) drystone walling two 2,500 years old dominates this picture of volunteers at work on the Iron Age defences of Crickley Hill; (above) new this season is a well equipped mobile exhibition aimed at spreading word of the project far and wide.)"

Alas, I fear that the yellow bus went to meet its maker long since, so cannot come to your fête ... 

Fourth Report 1972, part II : the Neolithic Enclosures

Thanks again to PWD for permission to post these extracts from his 1972 Fourth Report - click on the images to enlarge:

"The Neolithic Enclosures (Figures 2 – 4)

Two cuttings, CIII and CIV, were placed adjacent to the areas excavated in 1971; they confirmed the phasing established in 1971.

The two period bank identified in CII (Dixon, 1971) continued across cutting CIII (see figure 2).  In its latest phase, now called 1d, the bank was surmounted by a fence, the burnt traces of which were visible without a break as far as the north section of CIII. both phases of bank contained quantities of Neolithic pottery and worked flint, of types comparable to those found in 1971.

In the flat area behind the bank two hearths were uncovered.  These, and another in CII, are perhaps to be associated with post holes which may have supported screens, for no enclosed structures here can yet be identified.  At the southwest corner of CIII a pit contained only heavily burnt slabs similar to those of the hearths, which resemble in their construction the hearths, possibly of Period 3, found near the roundhouse and the hearth in CIV.  The design, however, is rudimentary, and in the absence of dating evidence any period ascription would be unwise. It is thus still unclear whether any of the structures behind the banks can be attributed to a Neolithic occupation.

The Period 1d ditch in CI continued without interruption across CIV (Ditch 304/603).  Some 45 m of this ditch have now been examined; the material from it and its bank is Neolithic throughout, including a fragment of a polished stone axe, but there is by now some doubt that it is in fact segmental, and the description "causewayed enclosure" seemed inappropriate for phase 1d.  Below the 1d bank ditch 853 (of Period 1b) formed a further section of ditch segment 384; at the northern side of the cutting the 1d bank has not yet been removed, and may conceal a causeway, but it is still possible that 853/384 is the same ditch segment as Ditch 319 which was exposed in cutting CI; thus the causeways uncovered in 1971 remain the only causeways across the two inner ditches.  From the primary silt of 853 came two decorated sherds kindly identified by Mr Humphrey Case as similar to material from the causewayed enclosure at Abingdon.

Towards the eastern end of CIV two segments of the ditch line (ditches 612 and 699) continued the outer ring of ditches excavated in 1971.  The broad causeway between 612 and 699 was matched by gap in the bank on their west sides. Through Across this area ran a structural weakness in the hill (a "gull"), filled with eroded limestone which had the consistency of concreted sand.  Unlike the normal oolite laminae elsewhere on the site, the material in the gull retained the impressions of stake holes, but the interpretation of the structures represented here and in the corresponding part of CIII was complicated not only by the continuing leaching of limestone into the gull but also by the activity of tree roots and rabbits which had taken advantage of the softer rock.  At least two phases were distinguishable (see figure 4).  The latest consisted of a hearth (628) set in a hard-trodden floor (629) of gull material mixed with earth and charcoal dust.  To the south and east the floor merged into a layer of clean yellow dissolved limestone; to the north it had been eroded by activity in the gull.  As a consequence it could not be established which postholes within the gull had been sealed by the floor.

Postholes 879, 615, and 880 can be associated with the hearth and floor, and a further small posthole between 615 and 880 was only doubtfully sealed;  within the gull postholes 640 and 621 resembled the former postholes in size; to this group posthole 860 seems an obvious addition, but this was larger and shallower than the others, similar in fact to postholes 861 and 858; posthole 858 predated 640 and it is possible 861 and 858 were earlier postholes in the group, replaced during a renewal of the structure by the adjacent postholes 640 and 621.  In either case the resultant plan would be a small boat-shaped house with a slightly eccentric hearth.  Daub was found in a hollow, 877, and some of the stake holes may have supported wattled screen wall.

Floor 629 merged eastwards into clean material ultimately derived from the gull.  This stratum overlay the edge of ditch 699, and a laid stone platform, 622, perhaps paving outside the house, similarly overlay the edge of bank 697 but neither ditch nor bank can confidently be placed in the overall phasing of the site; the absence of the causeway in 1d ditch 304/603 to the west perhaps would make otiose a gap here in the outer ring unless the latter pre-dates Period 1d, and ascription of the outer ring to 1b, or even as a single ring to the so far unenclosed period 1a and 1c, may be strengthened by consideration of the extreme erosion of the outer bank, which survived to a height of only 10 cm.  But with no general agreement about the function of causewayed enclosures the argument is weak.  The house itself could well belong to the hillfort occupation, and may be compared with the structures to the south of House 4, and perhaps should be associated with occupation debris, including a shard from a pot with a rounded shoulder decorated with finger tipping, in the upper levels of ditch 699.

Seal below floor 629 two large post holes, 878 and the complex around 884 and 879, can be linked with the ditches.  They sit midway between the bank terminals and were substantial enough to serve as supports for double or triple posts of a small gate; to the north postholes 894, 895 and 898 would then form a fence, but no corresponding postholes were found to the south, beyond the line of the gull.

The group of postholes cut pass into the sides of ditch 603 and part into the infill certainly belonged to the hillfort occupation of the site.  No posthole was found as a pair to posthole 654 but it should have lain entirely within the ditch and could easily have been overlooked in the rubble infill.  Spacing of posts exactly corresponded with that of the Period 2 longhouses and the house and its hearth, centrally placed at the top of the ditch infill, should be attributed to Period 2.  Beyond the crest of the bank in CIII four postholes of similar size and spacing to those of House 7 cut through the 1d bank, and perhaps formed a slightly trapezoidal structure of Period 2.  Immediately to the east of House 7 lay a palisade trench (617) from which the only find was an intact Neolithic arrowhead.  It lay parallel to the Period 1d ditch; equally, therefore, it aligned with the Period 2 house, and its date is uncertain.  A similar slot (682) to the east of ditch 612 belonged to the phase of the outer ditches.

Thus the inner bank excavations, in addition to producing problems about the interpretation of the Neolithic enclosures, have shown that the longhouse settlement, and perhaps the Period 3 settlement, continued at least 130 m within the rampart on the line of the hillfort entrance."

A review from the Hendon & District Archaeological Society of their visit to Crickley in 1976

The August Outing – To Cotswold Country

By Vincent de Paul Foster.

Crickley Hill, Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds, is a mere 2-hour coach ride from Hendon. It was our first port of call on the August outing. The hillfort has truly magnificent views across the Vale of the Severn. Those old hillfort builders certainly knew how to pick a site.
We were met at the entrance of the outer ramparts by Philip Dixon, Lecturer in Medieval Archaeology at Nottingham and Director of the Crickley Hill excavations. After explaining the layout of the fort, he told us its history. The site was occupied during both Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and is in area of approximately 3.6 hectares, enclosed by a ramparts rising to 2.7 m at the east end, with a ditch some 2.4 m deep. The other sides are so steep that additional defences there were unnecessary.

The earliest defences were constructed in the 6th/5th centuries BC of timber lacing. This method, also usable with stone revetting, obtains maximum strength by securing horizontal cross timbers through the body of the rampart, with connecting vertical posts at front and rear. This rampart was destroyed by fire. The northern entrance, in the last phase of construction, consisted of stone bastions with an enormous curving defensive hornwork.

Inside the fort Iron Age longhouses, unique to this country, have been excavated. The more common roundhouses have also been found. There are also 2 sets of Neolithic ditches; the earlier is of the usual causewayed camp type, with interruptions. The later is continuous and deeper than usual with a bank behind it. This season's 5-week dig has about 100 volunteers, mostly very youthful. We ate our lunch at the outer ramparts, and were startled to watch, from a distance, the mad rush of diggers to their lunch, at the nearby Civil Defence camp, as soon as klaxon sounded. Philip Dixon had warned us of his daily stampede, but I thought he was joking. British Olympic Selection Committee, 1980, please note -- this is a hot-bed of potential 3 1/2 minute milers.