CRICKLEY HILL- VILLAGE FORTRESS SHRINE Part 1 - The Neolithic

Thanks to Steve Vaughan who writes:

"I thought it might cheer up all of our Christmases to see something dredged from the Crickley Archive, and newly restored for a new generation. Thus, my humble offering - Richard Savage tapping into his inner Attenborough to deliver his epic stride across the Gloucestershire hill fort, now newly digitised and uploaded to Youtube. It’s in four parts, because as you no doubt know by now, Richard does like to go on a bit. You might remember that this used to play on a continuous loop in the site visitor centre, driving the wardens quietly crazy. The only reason I have a copy of this is because I won it in a raffle at the Friends Christmas dinner one year. Doubly festive then!"

1977: Robin's ditch

A fine set of beautifully cleaned steps cut into the limestone: 'Robin [Hall]'s ditch' is the caption Becky Sanderson attached to this picture: Neolithic, C-H-M suspects. Wonder what the weather report was the day this was dug out ...

More Neolithic ditch

Time for an archaeological view: another stretch of Neolithic ditch from Andrew Powell. Professor Dixon identifies: "Cutting CIV, showing the ditch 603 looking south, partially excavated; bank on the right overlies the causewayed enclosure ditches." A somewhat higgledy-piggledy turf wall in the background: not one of our best efforts.

The joining instructions for 1993

Lara Unger has kindly sent me the background information sheet and the joining instructions that she received for the 1993 season.

The background sheet reads:

"CRICKLEY HILL EXCAVATIONS

The twenty-fourth season of excavations will take place between 9 July and 17 August 1993.

The site is on a hilltop of the Cotswolds overlooking the Vale of Severn, with a wide panorama from the Warwickshire uplands to the Black Mountains of Wales. Excavations here began in 1969, and have continued each summer since. Remains of about twenty phases of occupation have been identified, ranging from the Neolithic (c.3000 BC) to the sub-Roman period (c. AD450). In the Neolithic a series of settlements, enclosed by ditches and banks, stood on top of the hill. After repeated attacks they were abandoned, and the site was occupied by ritual monuments - a stone circle and an earthen long mound. Much later, about 500 BC, two successive hillforts with substantial defences were built: each was destroyed by fire. Late in the Iron Age, just before 1BC, the hill was reoccupied, but without defences. After the Roman conquest of Britain the area was farmed, with a country house and a farmstead below the hill. At the end of the Roman period two separate settlements were built inside the old defences, probably during the fifth century AD. Both were burnt, and the hill was abandoned to pasture. An illustrated booklet describing excavations is available, price £2.50 (incl. p&p): please indicate on the form if you wish to receive Village, Fortress and Shrine, and enclose payment with your form.

During the 1993 season we hope to excavate in two areas: to the north-east of the Neolithic settlement, where surface indications suggest the complex rampart structure, and to the north of the western gate of the Neolithic camp, where excavations in 1992 showed an Iron Age roadway.

Accommodation for the team is in the Ullenwood Civil Defence Centre, which is less than a mile from the excavation site. Here we have dormitories for men and for women, washrooms and showers, a dining hall, kitchen and sitting room, and a lecture theatre, together with plenty of space for tents and caravans, set within a former army camp. The accommodation comes with full board (a cooked breakfast, sandwich lunch, an evening meal, and tea and biscuits during the morning and afternoon breaks) for an inclusive cost of £37.50 a week. Vegetarian meals are available by arrangement. We do not like diggers to cater for themselves in the camp, as our experience is that it is very difficult for the digger and distracting the staff, because of the problems of shopping. Lectures about the site and related subjects will be given normally on four evenings each week, and we hope to be able to organise a coach trip to visit monuments in the area during the training week. The excavation is run by a charitable trust and exists only with the aid of donations and sponsorship. All (including the director and staff) are unpaid volunteers. A few grants-in-aid, however, are available for those in special need, to cover part of the cost board and lodging. If you wish to be considered for one of these, please indicate this on your application form. We normally have to limit these to experienced workers.

On site we work six days a week between 9 am and 6 pm. Thursday are free days, when shops are open in Cheltenham and Gloucester. During the Advance period we shall be cleaning the camp and setting up the site huts, and making ready for the excavations. During the rearguard period we should be clearing up and putting away the tools. Note that board and lodging are free to diggers during these periods. Do not worry if you feel unfit: a wide range of jobs is available on site, from heavy digging to recording, drawing and finds processing. We hope that volunteers will be able to gain experience in as many different tasks as possible, and training and advice is provided by the supervisors and staff. Previous experience is not essential, but it takes about a week from the beginning to understand the work: try to join us at least at this period if you have never done before. We can, however, accept weekend-only diggers if they can make it a regular commitment. We are always ready to accept experienced diggers for shorter periods.

Training week: between 1 August and 7 August there will be a special training period, which will run in parallel with the normal digging. During this period those who enrol for training will receive additional lectures and tutorials and fieldtrips, and will be able to accompany the director supervisors at their tasks, in addition to some general digging on site. The cost of the trainees during this period will be £140, including full board and excursions. If you would like to receive further information about this, please indicate it on the application form. Note that during this period the normal digging programme will be available for non-participants in the training week at the normal rate of £37.50 per week.

If you wish to join us, fill in the application form and indicate the day on which you intend to arrive, the first meal you wish to take, and the day (normally the next day) on which you wish to start digging. If you find you enjoy it, you can normally arrange to extend your stay with us. Send your application, together with your deposit of £37.50 (which is your first week's board and lodging) to me at Nottingham, and I will send you a map, joining instructions, and some suggestions about what to bring with you.

Thank you for your interest in our work. Philip Dixon."

Said joining instructions are these:

"CRICKLEY HILL EXCAVATIONS

Dear Lara

Thank you for your application to dig at Crickley Hill between 7 July and ......... We have accommodation/space for your tent/caravan from 6 July to ...........

The Site is above the Air Balloon roundabout (the junction of the upper road from Cheltenham to Stroud with the road from Gloucester, at Nat. Grid Ref. S0934162. Immediately to the NW of the roundabout, on the Cheltenham Road is a sign to Crickley Hill Country Park. Follow the tarmac road up the hill to the Car Park and the Park Information Centre, which is about 100 yards to the east of the excavation site.

Accommodation is in Ullenwood Civil Defence Centre, Greenway Lane, Lech Hampton, Cheltenham, Glos (NGR SO 936174). Greenway Lane is a narrow road on the north side of the road from Cheltenham to the Air Balloon. [Take care not to go to Ullenwood Star Centre, which is an institution to the south of the Cheltenham Road, nor to Ullenwood Manor, which is a private house immediately to the west of Greenway Lane.] At Ullenwood CD Centre we have our dormitories, dining and lecture halls, kitchen and washrooms, and space for camping. Campers use the normal facilities of the Centre. Self catering is strongly discouraged, as there are no local shops. We can provide vegetarian meals. Those who use the dormitories should bring sleeping bags or sheets, or pillows and blankets. If this is difficult, we can supply pillows, sheets and blankets at the cost of their laundry.

Please arrive on the afternoon or evening before your first morning's digging with us. Cheltenham can be reached by coach or by rail. The camp is about 4 miles to the south of the town centre; many walk, since there is no convenient local bus service, but taxis are available: they should cost about £5. When you arrive, come either to the excavations (but not after 5 pm) or to Ullenwood camp, where most times of the day, and certainly after 6 pm, you will find members of the excavation. You should report your arrival at the earliest opportunity to the kitchen staff.

We will provide you with all meals at cost, which will amount to £37 50 per week: this includes a cooked breakfast, sandwich lunch, a full cooked meal in the evening, and biscuits and tea during the morning and afternoon breaks. On Thursdays, our day off, breakfast is confined to cereals/bread and jam, and lunch will not be provided: most of the team will be away in town or visiting on this day. Dinner on Thursdays is normally a cold buffet set out about 6 pm (and sometimes consumed by 6.30). During the rest of the week dinner will be served about 7 pm. In the evening after dinner (normally on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Fridays) there will be lectures for any who are interested on a range of subjects including the weekly site lecture (on Sundays), the background to the site, and problems of archaeological techniques and interpretation. During the week from 1 to 7 August there will be additional lectures in the evening as part of the training week. During this period there will be a field trip by coach; this should cost about £5 or so per head. If you are taking part in the training week this trip will be free, and you will be given your supplementary programme of teaching and site visits when you arrive.

Digging will take place between 9 am to 6 pm daily, except for Thursday. We have an hour after lunch, and tea breaks in the morning and afternoon. Bring warm clothes, which you don't mind getting muddy, and something really waterproof. You will need waterproof footwear (but nothing with heavily serrated soles, which leave marks on the site) and light but comfortable shoes (e.g. old trainers, but not sandals or beach shoes, which give your feet little protection). The weather can be very hot on the hill, and the next day cold wet and windy, and so you may need gloves, sun hat, dark glasses, sun lotion and insect repellent. Most people bring two (old) mugs, one for the site and one of the camp. We have stocks of utensils, but you may wish to bring your own: a knife, fork, spoon, plate, soup bowl. If you do, do not bring anything precious, since things get broken and lost. Unless your hands are already tough you will certainly need surgical spirit and Elastoplast. You may find a kneeling mat or a piece of foam rubber useful. It is certainly softer than kneeling on the rock. You will need a trowel. This should not be gardening tool but a builder's pointing trowel, diamond-shaped, and with a shank forged in one with the blade. They cost from £4 pounds to £15, dependent on the make, and the cheaper ones break very easily. The size is important: 4" or 5" is best; 6" too long. You are advised to mark it as clearly as possible with your name, or paint the handle distinctively, since they are universal tools which people habitually leave lying on the ground, and others pick up. You will need to bring two or more hard pencils (4H or 5H) for drawing and one of normal (HB) hardness for writing, a pencil sharpener, eraser and coloured pencils (red, yellow and blue) for planning.

Medical: for any work which involves digging with the chance of abrasions, a tetanus inoculation is recommended, if you have not already had one. We have an excavation doctor in Cheltenham, and are accustomed to first aid on the site (mostly blisters!). If you have any question about these instructions, please telephone or write as soon as possible: telephone numbers and addresses are given below.

For urgent communications during the period of the excavations contact: Mr R. D. A. Savage, etc. While at Crickley your postal address will be c/o Ullenwood Civil Defence Centre, Greenway Lane, Leckhampton, Cheltenham, Glos, England. There is no telephone at our base (though outgoing calls can be made from a nearby public box). If you wish to contact me during excavation period, please use this address. Some people try to reach me at the University during this period. This is pointless, since I shall not be there. I enclose a map which shows the site, Ullenwood camp and nearby roads, and look forward to seeing you."

Outer Neolithic ditch

If you like your ditches Neolithic but not continuous, this one's for you: Andrew Powell, whose photo this is, thought this view of the outer segmented Neolithic ditch was possibly from 1972: Prof Dixon thought it might be 1974 or 1973 and then came down in favour of 1973. Cheltenham dimly in the distance.

A public noticeboard ...

A shot of the basic map of the hill, which visitors now see, posted on the public information boards, as they come through the entrance of the Iron Age rampart, into the interior of the site: does the orientation job you need.

How Lara Unger came to Crickley ...

Lara Unger found the advertisement in 'Archaeology' magazine that led her to Crickley together with the prospectus she was sent for the Training Week. The piece in 'Archaeology' read:

"Crickley Hill (year- round, excavations July 6th to 20th August) Villages, fortresses and religious grounds dating from the Neolithic period to the Middle Ages have been discovered at this site. Archaeologists are examining the remains to gain further insight into both the secular and sacred life of the various settlements over time. Nearby attractions include hillforts, barrows and mediaeval towns in the Cotswolds. Getting there: take the train or coach to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire and a taxi to the site (about 4 miles); wheelchair accessible. No appointment necessary to visit the site (open daily). Accommodation and restaurants in town. Volunteers accepted. Write for application. Contact Philip Dixon, Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham N97 2RD, England (tel.) 602 515151."

Taking her courage in both hands after reading that mildly confusing flyer, Lara wrote off: Tina Dudley replied, enclosing the Training Programme. Tina's letter is on notepaper with a Crickley Hill Excavations logo in the shape of the postholes of an Iron Age Roundhouse: very good!

"Training Week

The Training week is designed to provide a concentrated period of excavation and post excavation experience, and a general understanding of archaeological methods. The week includes site visits, practical experience in digging, finds processing, planning and post-excavation work, all accompanied by regular lectures and seminars. All members of the training week have the opportunity to take part in all stages of the excavation process during their stay and will be attached to staff members, in order to observe the practices and duties of the digging team, who will provide immediate help and advice. [C-H-M would like to see a cartoon from Mr Andrew Powell depicting training week members attached to staff members who are providing immediate help and advice ...] Those on the Training Week stay in the accommodation of the Crickley Hill Excavation team, and share with the team in their social activities. [Hmm... should this have said: all Training Week members are automatically inducted into the Crickley Hill Formation Drinking Team?] Full information about the excavation and about the site visits will be provided upon arrival at Ullenwood.

Proposed programme

• Sunday 1 August on arrival you will be greeted by the Site Manager who will show you to your accommodation. All Training Week members will then assemble before dinner (7pm), which is followed by an introduction to the staff members and a lecture about the work at Crickley Hill over the past 25 years
• Monday 2 August In the morning we shall visit the site, and have a discussion of the excavation and its results. The visit will include a full site tour and explanations of our archaeological methods. After lunch you will receive your initial practical experience in either digging or finds processing. A member of staff is allocated to provide advice and answer any questions. At 8pm there will be a lecture on excavation methods.
• Tuesday 3 August Coach excursion to local sites of interest. This field trip is aimed at the earlier periods of archaeology. The timetable proposed for this trip is as follows: Leave Ullenwood at 9:00 am to travel to the late Iron Age hillfort at Uleybury Arrive at Neolithic Barrows of Hetty Pegler's Tump and Nympsfield. Minchinhampton earthworks: these probably belong to the late Iron Age Visit to Frocester Court which has something for everybody. The site has been excavated by its owner for over 30 years, and includes a Neolithic settlement, an Iron Age farmstead, a Roman Villa, and an important mediaeval grange, with a massive tithe barn. Visit to Cirencester, capital city of half of Roman Britain, and a well preserved mediaeval and early modern town; we may have a chance to visit the museum dependant upon time Return to Ullenwood for dinner. [Phew - there seems to be an element of time-travel about this day in the programme, but with Lofty at the wheel anything was possible...]
• Wednesday 4 August Half your day will be spent digging on site and half processing finds. This is designed to ensure that all members of Training Week receive good, all-round experience. There will a lecture in the evening on prehistoric settlements.
• Thursday 5 August Coach excursion to sites of interest on the Welsh Border. This field trip is aimed at the later periods of archaeology. Sites we intend to visit include: the 11th- century castle at Chepstow, a 12th century castle and 15th century manor house at Tretower, the rocky hillfort at Castell Dinas and the ruins of Tintern Abbey. Return to Ullenwood for dinner.
• Friday 6 August Planning, surveying and drawing. This will be in the form of practicals and lectures. Evening lecture on Fringe archaeology.
• Saturday 7 August Post excavation work, this includes the use of computers, processing of finds, site reports in the form of practicals and lectures. Evening lecture on publishing archaeological reports.
• Sunday 8 August This is your last day and by now you should have established where your interest lies in the field of archaeology. You have the choice of digging, drawing, finds, computer work or planning.

The cost of the Training Week is £140. This covers all tuition and transport costs as well as accommodation and board. Paces are limited: if you wish to take part a deposit of £40 is payable (cheques made payable to the Crickley Hill Trust and sent to me at Nottingham). The balance is due when you arrive at Ullenwood at the beginning of Training Week. If you have any queries or problems write to me at the Department of Archaeology, Nottingham. Your address during your visit will be Ullenwood Civil Defence Centre, Greenway Lane, Leckhampton, Cheltenham, Glos."

It almost makes me want to apply, especially the field trips ... to which I have now added some links.

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."

Whatever happened to the theme park idea?

Thanks to Kate Dumycz for this one too:

'Crickley Hill may be theme park - Archaeology

Times, The (London, England)-December 30, 1988
Author: Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent

The prehistoric hill fort on Crickley Hill, near Cheltenham, is set to become one of Britain's first archaeological theme parks, if present plans go through.

Neolithic and Iron Age houses will be reconstructed, and staff dressed in appropriate ancient costumes will demonstrate grinding corn, spinning and weaving, and other skills now lost to all but a few craftworkers.

The park will be a joint venture of the Crickley Hill Trust, the body which has carried out excavations on the site for 20 years, and Gloucestershire County Council's Leisure and Recreation Department. The activity area will be east of the archaeological site, on land that does not form part of the ancient monument but still lies within the Crickley Hill Country Park.

The theme park, which will resemble well known and long established continental parks such as Lejre in Denmark, will probably have a circle of round houses at its core, based on those excavated within the Iron Age ramparts of the hill fort. There may also be a longhouse, according to Dr Philip Dixon, of Nottingham University, director of the trust and of the archaeological work at Crickley. It was the first site to yield convincing evidence of Iron Age longhouses in Britain.

The public presentation of Crickley has developed recently with the opening of a visitor centre, in which displays explaining the environment and its use by prehistoric people are complemented by a model of the Iron Age village and by a video programme in which the importance of the site and the discoveries there are explained.

The video was made with a Pounds 1,500 Hepworth Award, one of five given this year to archaeological projects with a promising programme of public presentation.

Excavation has proceeded this year in parallel with the development of facilities and plans for visitors: a number of possible ritual pits have been found, one with horse teeth at the bottom, others filled with hazelnut shells. Dr Dixon speculates that fertility of stock and trees may have been a motive.

While these, and most of the 1988 work, lie within the earlier Neolithic fort of some 5,000 years ago, part of the Iron Age rampart of 600BC has also been excavated.

A shelf was cut into the bedrock to stabilise the bank, which was laced with large timbers. Charcoal from the burning of the fortifications, and heavily reddened limestone, attest to at least one occasion when the strategic location, on a spur of the Cotswolds, and the powerful defences, were not enough.

Record Number: 1016512625
(c) Times Newspapers Limited 1988, 2003'

I think I'm quite pleased this didn't happen ...

'The Times' 20 August 1987

More from 'The Times' courtesy of Kate Dumycz:

'Archaeology: Evidence of forgotten ritual

Times, The (London, England)-August 20, 1987
Author: NORMAN HAMMOND, Archaeology Correspondent

Excavations at the Cotswold hillfort of Crickley Hill have revealed a set of curious features that may reflect a lost ritual more than 4,000 years old.

Consisting of bare polished rock platforms and several sets of pits, the features are almost devoid of finds, and thus difficult to date with precision.

The discovery came during the 19th season of excavations at Crickley Hill, which overlooks the Severn valley, near Gloucester. An area lying between those investigated in 1978 to 1981, on the 'central knoll' of the hilltop was stripped, and several features found in the 1978 investigations were found to continue.

The platforms consist of areas of the local limestone, possibly levelled up, which have been polished by the wear of innumerable feet over a period of years. The areas have no clearly defined edges, although fires were lit on them in places, and their density of finds was only 4 per cent of that in the neighbouring neolithic village area, suggesting careful sweeping.

Dr Philip Dixon, of Nottingham University, the director of the excavations, feels that this cleanliness makes them unlikely to be house sites. Phosphate testing is being carried out to see whether activities such as cremation were carried out on the platforms: several pits in the vicinity have yielded fragments of burnt human bone.

The fires were not lit in formal hearths, but were more like bonfires, Dr Dixon said. The problem with the phosphate survey, which detects organic materials, is that 'background noise' from medieval sheep grazing and later rabbit warrens needs to be filtered out to see if any prehistory activity is demonstrated.

Some of the platform surfaces overlie pits, although they are thought to belong to the same general period as the platforms. In them were found layers of tightly packed stone slabs, together with such objects as a calf's jaw and a horse's shoulderblade; both may have had meat on them when buried.

The filling of the pits may have occurred in two episodes, with a turf line developing in the interval; another turf line, separating the platforms and pits from the neolithic occupation of about 3000-2500 BC, demonstrates that these features are of a later date.

Dr Dixon surmises that they are of the Beaker period, around 2000 BC, or of Iron Age date, when the next major occupation of Crickley Hill begins with the impressive hillfort visible today.

He feels that the platform/pit complex may be coeval with, or slightly later than, the late neolithic shrine found two years ago at the end of the enigmatic 'long mound' a few metres down the hill (The Times, July 29, 1985).

Further investigation of the long mound this year has shown that it had an even more complicated history than initially thought, with three major periods of development in which the mound was progressively raised and lengthened. Stone settings at the ends and along the flanks of the mound were replaced as they became buried by erosion deposits.

Few parallels are known in Britain for this concentration of apparently ceremonial behaviour, although the circles of large pits found at the Irish megalithic site of Newgrange a few years ago, and also dated to around 2000 BC, may reflect similar preoccupations on the part of the ancient inhabitants.

Record Number: 1024671857
(c) Times Newspapers Limited 1987, 2003'

Were you a model for this scene?

Jill Hummerstone and Les Capon included this postcard amongst their photo collection: the caption on the back reads: "Neolithic Village c. 2500 BC after Crickley Hill". Cattle, sheep, corn grinding, spears and axes feature. The smoke filtering through the thatch is a nice touch. No sign of JP anywhere ...

Crickley panorama from Birdlip

The view of the hill from Birdlip on the morning of the reunion, again! Dr Ferris and I reckoned that you can't quite see the Long Mound even when you know where it is. But you cannot mistake the rampart.

Crickley Hill in 'The Times'

My thanks to Kate Dumycz for sending me this piece from 'The Times':

'Evidence of cult activity on site - Archaeology

Times, The (London, England)-August 17, 1989
Author: Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent

A ritual landscape four thousand years old is gradually emerging from the Cotswold site of Crickley Hill. Noted as a fortified settlement both in the Neolithic and the Iron Age, the site has now yielded evidence of ceremonial and cult activities in the intervening period.

Crickley Hill, which lies south east of Cheltenham on a dramatic spur overlooking the Severn Valley, has already yielded evidence of ritual constructions in the later Neolithic around 2500 BC (The Times, July 29 1985). These included a small wooden enclosure which Dr Philip Dixon, who
has directed the excavations for the past 21 years, interprets as a nemeton, or shrine.

The current discoveries have been made in the same part of the site: the nemeton was overlain by a stone circle at the end of a "long mound", and it is this mound that has produced some of the present season's intriguing results.

"The Long Mound itself consists of a mass of finely sifted topsoil, three metres (10 feet) wide, nearly 100 metres long and originally about a metre high. There was a stone kerb along both sides, under some of the slabs of which butchered animal bones were laid," Dr Dixon said.

"This was merely the final stage: there were at least five phases of construction, and the whole mound was built over the neolithic trackway that led to the shrine."

Dr Dixon said that while there were as yet no absolute dates for the Long Mound complex, the feature was clearly substantially later than the Neolithic features, which were covered by a mature soil, and earlier than the first Iron Age occupation of around 600 BC, postholes from which were cut into the silts over the Long Mound phase.

A date in the mid second millennium BC, contemporary with the Wessex Bronze Age and the final constructions at Stonehenge, would be appropriate, Dr Dixon believes.

Another surprising discovery has been the setting within which the Long Mound was built and used: on the slope overlooking it, lines of pits were dug into the limestone bedrock, many with fragments of cremated human skulls or animal remains at the bottom.

Linking the pits were a series of cobbled platforms, scorched on their upper surfaces. So far at least three, and perhaps four, roughly parallel lines of pits have been excavated, oriented towards the circle at the western end of the Long Mound.

"Surrounding the whole of this part of the site we have uncovered a narrow trench, which seems to have been used solely for brushwood fires", Dr Dixon said.

"The Long Mound and its stone circle are invisible to anyone standing outside this trench, except for one place, and there we have found postholes suggesting that a fence or screen was erected.

"The combination of prominence and secrecy suggests Chieftain's magic: the nearest point from which the mound can be seen, a quarter of a mile across the valley, is Barrow Wake, the location of Bronze Age round barrows or burial mounds."

The central portion of the Long Mound remains unexcavated, but Dr Dixon hopes that the full sequence of construction and ritual activities will be elucidated in a future season of excavation.

Section: Home news

Record Number: 1012744375
(c) Times Newspapers Limited 1989, 2003'

Simple beauty

Dr Ferris and I walked through the beautiful cool beechwood together on Saturday morning after breakfast. We nearly lost hope that we would find a break in the trees to see the view that we knew must be there: a happy chance encounter with a kind woman walking her dog, just as we were about to give up, meant that we could ask the way: "Through this gate and down to the end of the field, there's quite a good view", said she.

And this is what we saw...

The Neolithic Bank near the Circle 1983

Wonderful definition in the photograph: a team of three in 1983 doing the most extraordinarily careful cleaning of the Neolithic bank near the Circle. They really made it look good for the photographs: can anybody recognize the heads bowed in labour? This comes from PWD's collection.

What sort of hole might this be?

Back to 1975 and Mr Boden's activities with his Pentax. His description of this photograph was as follows: "Picture of a hole in limestone which some of the archaeologist types might have referred to as a ditch. Brushing is, I think possibly, Tim Allen (now an archaeologist as seen on TV). I think the blond youth watching was called Anders."

The BGAS 1989 report

A further abstract from the transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, this time from the 1989 season as follows:

"COBERLEY/BADGEWORTH, Crickley Hill, SO927161. During the 20th season of excavations a straight line of burnt hearths was found below the long mound, surrounded by very large number of finds, pottery, flint and bone.  The area is interpreted as a communal kitchen, of the final phase of the Neolithic settlement.  To the south of the entrance it was found that the buildings of the round-house settlement were confined to a strip about 15 m broad behind the rampart.  To the west lay two rows of square structures, their post holes containing barley grains, which seemed to be an extension of the zone of granaries of the hillfort settlement.  Towards the south of the excavated area, two-face hearth was dated by remnant magnetism to 1 BC +/- 2 years.  Nearby a penannular brooch and smooth, black, late-looking pottery were found.  Within the ramparts a quarry hollow, used as a rubbish tip during the last occupation of the hillfort, produced quantities of pottery and animal bone.  The hollow had ultimately been utilised as the floor of a small hut, walled in stone.  The structure resembles the sub-Roman/Dark Age buildings found 80 m to the south in the lee of the rampart.  Several sherds of Roman greyware were uncovered immediately to the west of it."

The date seems curiously, nay perhaps even spuriously, precise...  one suspects a typographical error?

Current Archaeology 110 from 1988

Click on images to enlarge

My thanks both to 'Current Archaeology' and its publisher Rob Selkirk (Current Archaeology) and as ever to PWD for their kind permission to reproduce this abstract from CA 110 in 1988. It's rather longer than my usual posts but there wasn't really an obvious way in which it could be split into instalments.  

"Crickley Hill 1969 – 1987 by Philip Dixon

Crickley Hill lies on the edge of the Cotswolds, with magnificent views over the valley of the Severn.  The excavations began by investigating an Iron Age hillfort, but soon a Neolithic causewayed camp was discovered, and later a Dark age stronghold.  This view shows the Neolithic entrance passage, looking west.

Twenty years is a long time to spend on a single excavation, particularly when the site is hillfort of modest size.  But the excavations at Crickley will soon enter their third decade, and seem likely to continue for some years yet.  The site has proved to be remarkably rewarding, with a long and complex history: furthermore, no ploughing has damaged the deposits, so even ephemeral traces of past activity can be picked up in the soil.

The project was begun in 1969 with limited aims.  We wanted to dig the entrance and part of the rampart of an Iron Age hillfort, and to dig a few trenches in the interior to try and assess when the fort was built, and whether it was built for permanent or temporary occupation.  The wider aims were unrealistic, given the small scale of work at first, but by the end of the third season in 1971, we had answered most of the questions with which we had started: by then two superimposed hillfort entrances had been explored, and a system of phasing arrived at – a phasing sequence still in use on the site. The Iron Age defences were dated by pottery and metalwork, and soon by radiocarbon, too, to the period c. 700 to 450 BC.  Within the banks, trial holes revealed occupation debris post holes, dense in places, of broadly the same two periods as the defences.

Our problems, however, were just beginning.  Towards the centre of the hill, well within the Iron Age defences, lay a much eroded bank.  Cuttings across this area revealed unmistakably Neolithic assemblages – flint tools and waste flakes in large numbers, and pottery akin to that from the Windmill Hill excavations. Below this earthwork layer completely separate Neolithic bank and ditch, and even at this early stage it was apparent that these two Neolithic banks had been subjected to a whole series of alterations and reconstructions.

The site was clearly sufficiently complex, and well enough preserved to warrant a more thorough examination than was possible in a series of individual cuttings.  So in 1972 we began a programme of stripping, in a regular grid pattern across the top of the hill.  Over the seasons since then we have excavated some 160 10 x 10 metre squares, an overall total of about 17,400 square metres.

At first we were concerned that our returns would diminish as we knew more about the site.  Theory, after all, suggests that a site may satisfactorily be investigated by a limited, often small sample. This has not been our experience at all. Almost every season has produced something new (and has required the modification of our interpretations of other formerly-believed aspects of the site).  Even minor details are proved to have an added significance when seen in the total context of our growing knowledge of Crickley.

Our earliest horizon is a causewayed-enclosure of two circuits of ditches, with at least nine entrances. In comparison with the majority of Neolithic interrupted ditch enclosures, that on Crickley is tiny, no more than two acres in size.  Its history is complicated:  the outer ring was built first; the larger, inner, ring was contemporary with the second phase of the outer ring.  Both were subsequently abandoned and restored on at least two occasions, and in flimsier phase of reoccupation the inner ring alone was rebuilt.  While the relative sequence is clear, the time-span of all this is still doubtful.  Almost all our Neolithic assemblages fit into a single phase of Neolithic material culture.  At the moment, we are proposing a date range from c. 3000 to c. 2600 hundred BC for these enclosures.

The final Neolithic enclosure, a single-ring affair with few causeways, was built after a period of abandonment.  Its narrow entrances, strong fences (and the plentiful evidence from leaf arrowheads and widespread burning) indicate that it was intended for protection, and fell only after a serious assault (see CA 76, May 1981). After the results from Hambledon and Carn Brea, Neolithic defences in Britain can no longer be denied.  Though this enclosure has occasionally been singled out as the “Neolithic Fort” at Crickley, in its layout of entrances, banks and fences, it is not at all unlike the earlier Crickley causewayed-enclosures: these too have now produced leaf arrowheads in significant contexts, and their double rings would clearly provide a defence in depth more effective even than the more obvious “fort ”.  On the whole, then, it seems likely that all these neolithic enclosures provided a protection – and a protection, probably for a settlement, for several phases of roads, fences and houses have been uncovered in the interior.

During the final phase of the Neolithic enclosure a small plateau at the western end of the hill had been segregated from the rest of the site by complex series of fences (see photo opposite). It was approached by a narrow footpath, blocked by two gates, and at the further side of the tiny courtyard stood a small rectangular building, with a hearth in the opening front of it, and with low cairns containing bones, flint and pottery at the extremities of the platform.  Apart from these deliberate deposits, the whole of the area was kept scrupulously clean.  The arrangements resemble those in the Danish Neolithic shrines of Tustrup and Herrup and the Crickley building is provisionally identified as the shrine of the last Neolithic settlement: it was burnt at the same time as the settlement itself.

Sometime now passed – long enough for the Neolithic ditches to silt to about one third of their depth.  The footpath leading to the former shrine was buried in a massive cairn of small rubble, and apparently marked out by upright posts.  On top of the shrine a circle of small stones set upright as a kerb surrounded a huge burning slab, seen opposite.  In its final form, with western circle, long mound and kerb-stones, and a marker or totem at its eastern end, the monument was as long as 100 m, and was isolated from the surrounding countryside by a small trench, cut into the infilled ditches of the Neolithic enclosure. We still do not know when this ritual use of the site came to an end.  Its beginning was probably in the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age; it is possible that it continued in use until shortly before the reoccupation of the site during the building of the Iron Age hillforts.

These early phases of the site are fascinating, but very ticklish to interpret.  The hillfort, in contrast may seem straightforward.  The area of the occupation was more than twice that of the earlier enclosure, and the defence is tall, and military-seeming, with narrow in-turned gatepassage and timber-laced ramparts.

The settlement inside was of two periods.  The first was the more unusual, for it contains several rows of rectangular buildings (see plan, p. 75). These have a very early date, possibly in the 7th century BC, and they remain virtually unique in hillforts in Britain. There was also a series of clusters of small square buildings from which have come thousands of charred grains of cereal.  After a period of occupation only modest length, the fort and its buildings were destroyed by fire.

They were then reconstructed in a completely new arrangement.  The houses were by now the more usual roundhouses, with a particularly large one just inside the entrance (for the chief?).  There will also some 4-post granaries, and the defences were massively improved.  Work on them was still continuing, and an outer ring of vallation had only just been begun, when the fort was once again destroyed by a fire which consumed the roundhouses and granaries, and involved all the timber work in the new defences.  The date of this, the final destruction of the hillfort, seems to have been in the fifth century BC.

At the moment we have no clear evidence of any further occupation of the site for nearly a thousand years.  A change of use, however, came at the end of the Roman period.  At the end of the fourth or in the fifth century AD two separate settlements were built on top of the ruined hillfort about 200 m apart. One was sited close behind the collapsed Iron Age ramparts, and consisted of rows of small slightly sunken huts.  When we first explored them, we thought they were going to be platforms of Iron Age round huts, but they were dated by late Roman material (including a military belt buckle) and grass tempered wares.

Two hundred metres to the west, on the very tip of the promontory was another settlement, enclosed by a strong fence, and entered through a wide gate with a guard house.  It contained a series of buildings, including a granary and at least one substantial framed house.  This too was dated by late Roman material and grass tempered wares.

However there were considerable differences between them in layout and cleanliness; all the finds came from the rather dirty settlement behind the rampart, which we are thus identifying as a peasant village. The settlement on the end of the promontory was much cleaner (fewer fines), and we are thus identifying it as an enclosed high status site.  Both presumably belonged to a sub-Roman British group, perhaps even the descendants of the occupants of one or other of the nearby Roman country houses.  These settlements in common with almost all Crickley’s occupations over three millennia, seemed to have ended through an act of war, perhaps in the late fifth or sixth century.

The destruction of the Dark Age sites at present seems to have been the end of serious occupation on our hill.  In the Middle Ages the top was used by grazing animals, and fragmentary hut on the side of the hillslope may have belonged to a shepherd.  When the agricultural improvements of the 19^th century came to the Cotswolds, Crickley was remote from the areas of arable farming around the villages, and so escaped that destruction by the plough that was so widespread in the region.  Until the start of our excavations it remained little visited, a place where (in Ivor Gurney’s poem about the hill)

The orchis, trefoil, harebells nod all day, /High over Gloucester and the Severn Plain."

Neolithic ditches were what I asked for ...

 ... and my wish was granted by Andrew Powell.  He sends these splendid photographs of the larger inner Neolithic ditch in 1972 (season supplied by PWD).  Andrew has thoughtfully included himself for scale in the top photograph and it shows quite how big these ditches were.  As he says the ditches "took some emptying".  My apologies to those of you who have got used to my early morning habits for the late posting today: I'd forgotten that I hadn't got anything in store! 

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."