More from Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory

Thanks to Philip Dixon and the Crickley Hill Trust for permission to reproduce the following abstract from " Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory", published in 1977:

"Later Developments

After the destruction of Crickley’s second hillfort, perhaps about 500 BC, the site was again abandoned.  A few pieces of metalwork were found in the turf (Iron Age pins, a brooch, Roman sandal nails, and Anglo-Saxon dress ornaments) imply no more than transient visitors, and no permanent buildings have been recognized later than those of the last hillfort period.  No signs of planning have been noticed and the hill was presumably used only for grazing.  The burnt wooden buildings would soon have disappeared, but parts of the ramparts stood until the 3^rd or 4^th century AD, in their final collapse burying a small pig which was apparently rooting in the rubbish of the ruined entrance passage.

Changes meanwhile occurred in the settlements of Gloucestershire.  A new group of hill forts was built to the north, on Bredon Hill and the adjacent Cotswolds slopes.  No radiocarbon dates are available, but their pottery belongs to the 4^th and 3^rd century and later, and closely resembles the material from the forts of the Malverns and Herefordshire: the influences in the area seem to have shifted from east to west.  A discovery of great significance has recently been made at Beckford, near Bredon, where rescue excavations, in advance of gravel workings, have exposed parts of the large lowland settlement, whose houses were set within a regular grid of rectangular boundary ditches.  The arrangement resembles that at Dragonby, Lincs., and is the first clear occurrence of an eastern flat settlement in the West, an area otherwise dominated by hillforts.  The Beckford pottery is identical to that from the tiny fort at Conderton nearby, which can thus plausibly be seen as the citadel of the otherwise unfortified village.  No open settlement is yet known which might have been associated with the Crickley Hill fort.

Farther south, the small hill fort at Painswick Beacon, with its multiple lines of banks and ditches, is of a type associated with the latest Iron Age, but no dates are available for the site.  During the first century AD and new centre of settlement was formed at Bagendon, near Cirencester, a tribal capital 200 acres in extent within its banks, the predecessor of the Roman town.  An important family must have lived near Crickley at this period, for road making between Crickley and Birdlip in 1879 revealed a small cemetery of the early 1^st century AD, whose rich grave goods are now displayed in Gloucester Museum.  No contemporary settlement site has been uncovered, and Crickley itself remained deserted until the foundation in the 2^nd century AD of the small Roman farm whose branch boundaries may be traced within the wood to the east of the hillfort.

Further Reading

E. M. Clifford Bagendon (1961)

C.  Green 'The Birdlip Early Iron Age Burials', Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society XV (1949)

W.  Britnell 'Beckford',  Current Archaeology 45 (1974)

J.  Dyer Southern England: an archaeological guide (1973).  An excellent gazetteer and general guide"

Crickley Hill: the radiocarbon sequence

Professor Dixon writes: "Over the past year I have been working with two or three people on the Neolithic at Crickley, and now have a text and over 40 C14 dates. Would it be interesting to hear about these? I attach the latest calculations of the dates of the site."  The range of the dates is fascinating, I think and covers a far wider span certainly than I previously knew: I had no idea that the Long Mound was anything like as late as the above chart shows.  Tell us some more, Phil ...  what is the banana barrow? I knew not about a cairn... Are you sure that the Dark Age dates are not contaminated by an old pair of John Parry's denims?

Prehistoric flint, pottery and bronze objects with contemporary structures

(Click on the image to enlarge)

My thanks to Philip Dixon and the Crickley Hill Trust for permission to reproduce this figure and extract from "Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory", 1977:  

"The first metals, copper and copper alloys, appeared in Britain about 2000 BC, apparently associated with the immigrant users of "Beakers", characteristically-shaped decorated vessels of fine pottery.  Iron came into common use in Britain much later, during the seventh and sixth centuries BC, and the sophisticated bronze-smiths and founders of the Late Bronze Age were re-placed as the providers of tools and weapons by blacksmiths.

After the abandonment of the Neolithic site Crickley seems to have lain deserted for over a thousand years.  The few fragments of Beaker pottery have been recognized in the excavations, and flint arrowheads of the same period suggest that the hilltop was then being used for little more than hunting.  The change came with the arrival of the hillfort builders."