The Crickley Chronicle No 22

Jill Hummerstone included with her photographs a couple of copies of the 'Crickley Chronicle', the newsletter of the Friends of the Crickley Hill Trust, which was edited by Lydia Savage. Today pages 1 and 5 from the Spring 1990 issue no 22. Page 1 asks the question "What are these people doing?" and page 5 provides the answer.

"February ...... The Friendlier Fieldwalking Survey

Earlier this year thanks to the permission of Mike Cuttell the owner of Ullenwood Court Farm, the opportunity arose to undertake a fieldwalking survey of the Crippets Field Long Barrow and its environs. This would be the last chance that anyone would have to carry out such a survey for some time as the field was soon to put to pasture. Hence we approached our task with a good deal of enthusiasm.

Our aim was to undertake a hacher survey of the longbarrow itself and to fieldwalk the surrounding area, along with that on and around the ploughed out round barrow which lies to the south of this. While one party strode into the undergrowth atop the longbarrow clutching the theodolite and a set of ranging poles, the remainder edged their way forward clutching their markers with a cry of 'Eyes down for a full house'.

Despite a brief period when we wondered whether flippers might not be a more suitable form of attire than walking boots all those who took part remained undeterred and the weekend was well supported. We managed to achieve all our objectives in the time allowed and satisfyingly, finds were plentiful. These consisted chiefly of flint (including a D-shaped scraper and a slug knife) and a smaller quantity of pottery.

Our 'friendly' flintophile John Gale will be looking at the finds in more detail and thanks must go to him and all the other friends who helped make the weekend such a resounding success."

C-H-M does not know what a 'hacher survey' is. Neither does Google. Can anyone enlighten him? There's a picture of a D-shaped scraper here. I could only find a picture of a slug on a knife as opposed to a slug knife so will not trouble my readers with it.

Dr Ferris wittily illuminates: "Making a hash of it: That's because the word is 'hachure'. A hachure is the symbol to denote slope; the thicker end of the hachure being the higher point. Thus one can use hachures to depict both banks and ditches etc very easily and clearly. C'est tout."

The 1982 season in a few sentences ...

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

Experimental archaeology 11: here are some she made earlier ...

Perhaps Dr Cleal can remember whether this was the triumphant result of the experimental potting which she did in either 1988 or 1989? They certainly look very fine, but it's hard to tell (for me at least) what stage in the process had been reached when the Chronicler took this picture. And what's she doing? Singing into an imaginary microphone? Examining a broken nail? The legs on the left behind Ros belong to Steve Vaughan.

Experimental archaeology 8: Dr Cleal the Potter part two

Ros looks as though she is feeling her way gingerly around the edge of this pot searching for any cracks or weaknesses in the rim before consigning the pots to firing. There appears to be more than one episode of potting: this photograph was taken by Phil, but when you compare it with the picture which I posted some months ago taken by Dr Phillpotts she's wearing different clothes.  Then again she is wearing the same clothes as she is in the Dixon photograph in this other Phillpotts shot.  Perhaps Dr Cleal can remember whether there was more than one potting episode in 1988 or 1989, - whichever year it was - or whether she did a quick change during the course of the day?

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 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."

Savage 1988 5: The Last Neolithic Fortress

My thanks to Richard Savage and the Crickley Hill Trust for permission to reproduce abstracts from Richard's 1988 booklet: here the Neolithic section as an Easter treat. Note the chilling last sentence.

A defended Neolithic village c.  2500 BC  

About 2500 BC the last Neolithic defence at Crickley was built following the line of the inner causewayed enclosure to the east but extending the defended area by 40 m to the west, to include the flat shelf above the tip of the promontory.  The new ditch was continuous, except where broad causeways gave three entrances -- north-east, south-east, and west - and provided the stone for a low wall, at most a metre high, carefully built with the internal walls packed with rubble in a cellular structure.  At the rear of the wall stood a wooden palisade.

The new ditch was built outside the ditch of the old inner enclosure on the east, following its line and so close to it that the quarriers of the new ditch twice broke through into the old one.  Each time, they re-sealed the gap with a miniature wall of stone, as though they were anxious not to release some force or entity believed to lurk in the old pits -- which they felt about strongly enough to undertake the tremendous labour of making a wholly new ditch in the living rock, instead of clearing the old one and re-using it and its stone.  The new wall in this sector was built over the old, filled pits.  Apparently their influence could be confined, and would not weaken it.

[Illustration: Bowman. C. Clark]

This new defence, and the settlement it protected, had much in common with its predecessors.  It east an entrances coincided with those of the causewayed enclosures, and the southeastern one gave access to a fenced road along which were aligned at least to two rectangular wooden houses.  60 m inside the entrance, the road turned north to the settlement on the high point of the hill which is marked by dense clusters of pottery, flint, post holes, stakeholes, and a flint-working area, to which the north-west entrances also gave access.  But where it turned north, a gate now controlled access to a narrow path continuing along the road's original westward axis but leading only towards a fenced area with no other entry, on the shelf above the tip of the promontory. 

[Illustration: Conjectural reconstruction of the last Neolithic fortress. The positions of the central houses are not yet known. R. Morgan]

On this shelf stood the  settlement's shrine, the entrance to its precinct guarded by diminutive upright stone and a wooden gateway or arch.  Although the stone is in the middle of the path, and only a few centimetres high, the wear of the cobbling shows that all the traffic passed to the south of it.  The rituals of the shrine involved fire, the burning of bone, perhaps in animal sacrifices, and apparently the gathering of pottery, flint, bone and antler in special places away from the centre of the precinct but overlapping its edges.

[Illustration: The shrine. C. Clark]

The position of the shrine is remarkable.  It is hidden from watchers on the main body of the promontory to the east by the swell of the highest point, unless they are placed exactly in the line of the natural hollows leading to it, while had overlooked a panorama of the Severn Vale and will have been visible from great distances to the north, south and west.

Access to the tip of the promontory and the path down to the Vale by this route was specifically denied, and a traveller entering the settlement from the south-east could only gain it by turning north outside the shrine, passing through the central settlement area and going out through the north-west entrance, from which the shrine was isolated by its fence.

This last Neolithic settlement ended in violence.  It was burnt - houses, gateways and all -  after an attack by bowmen whose flint arrowheads hungrily crowd the palisades and entrances.  Four hundred have been found at Crickley so far; they are the remnants are one of the first known battlefields.  To judge from examples preserved at waterlogged sites, the bows were large and powerful, not very different from the longbows of Crecy and Agincourt.  Flint arrowheads penetrate flesh better than steel ones, and are more likely to break off in the wound.

[Photographs and plan: Neolithic flint arrowheads (length 40, and 40mm), and their find-places in a 100m length of the neolithic defences]

The Second Hillfort

Again, by kind permission of Professor Dixon: the Second Hillfort at Crickley section of "Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory" from 1977:

"After the burning of the first fort the site was abandoned for several years at least, while silt layers and turf formed above the ruins.  Rebuilding began piecemeal: the old walls were patched up and a new gate inserted into damaged entrance.  Subsequently this gate was massively rebuilt in a single operation and was now defended by a pair of stone bastions, approach being checked by a second gate in a large outwork.  Behind this spectacular and formidable obstacle the settlement was replanned: a great round house, nearly 50 feet in diameter, stood directly beyond the inner gate; around it lay an irregular ring of smaller roundhouses; further away small square buildings in clusters were presumably used as granaries, and other groups of postholes, in pairs or similar arrangements, may be seen as the remains of ancillary buildings like those of the earliest settlement; (see figure 3).  A radiocarbon date from the new gateway suggests a date for the rebuilt fort not later than the late 6th or the early 5th century BC.

The difference in building techniques is striking, and the new community used a fine decorated pottery quite distinct from that of the first hillfort.  To regard the inhabitants as newcomers seems reasonable, but they will not have come from far away, for similar pottery-styles (and similar houses) were in fashion in contemporary sites in the mid and upper Thames basin.

The life of the second hillfort may well also have been short: the new cobbled road through the entrance was worn and patched, but there were no signs of repair or rebuilding the postholes either of the houses or of the defences.  Despite its massive ramparts the fort was attacked and captured: the houses were burnt, a thick layer of charcoal covered the cobbled road, and the walls of the bastions were reddened by fire.

Other sites to see

Of the many hill forts of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds only Leckhampton, near Cheltenham, has produced evidence of an occupation broadly contemporary with that at Crickley, ending in a similar destruction.  Excavation has shown that the Leckhampton rampart belongs to a single period of building, with a few scraps of pottery resembling that of the second Crickley hillfort.

Nothing is yet known of the houses inside Leckhampton, but roundhouses are familiar from many sites in Britain.  Small roundhouses (based on examples found at the later Iron Age sites ofConderton, near Bredon, Worcs., and Glastonbury, Somerset) may be seen reconstructed at the Avoncroft Museum near Bromsgrove; a large roundhouse, modelled on the house excavated at Pimperne, Dorset, has recently been built at the experimental Iron Age farm on Little Butser Hill, near Petersfield, Hants.

Further Reading

D. Harding, The Iron Age in Lowland Britain (1974),  B. Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain (1974), B. Cunliffe, 'The Iron Age' in British Prehistory, ed. C. Renfrew (1974), Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Ancient and Historical Monuments in the County of  

Gloucester, Vol. 1: Iron Age and Romano-British Monuments in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds (1976)"

Experimental archaeology 6: a watched pot never fires ...

Waiting for it to happen: Steve Vaughan, Nick Snashall and Ros Cleal hang about, in Steve's case hopping from foot to foot while pouring tea from his mug on the ground behind him, whilst waiting for the pots to fire.  This is the latest in the 1988 or 1989 series showing various experiments.  Nick seems to be half way through a sandwich to pass the time and Ros seems to be sucking a lemon.  I suppose it may just be that the colours are fading in Dr Phillpotts's original photo and it's an orange ... perhaps Ros can enlighten us?

Witts's Ancient Camps - Leckhampton Camp

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

"No. 64. — Leckhampton Camp. On Leckhampton Hill, two miles out of Cheltenham, there is an interesting work of some magnitude. The point of the hill overlooking the valley of the Severn has been cut off by an entrenchment, consisting, for the greater part of the distance, of a single mound nine feet high, with each end resting on the escarpment. About 50 yards from the northern precipice there are two entrances through the entrenchments, one leading into the main portion of the camp, and another, at a much lower level, leading into a deep depression running nearly parallel with the edge of the rocks. Along the line of the entrenchments from these entrances to the escarpment there is a considerable ditch, outside the bank. On the old Ordnance Survey a bank is shown parallel to the northern escarpment of the hill. This has possibly been destroyed by quarrying operations. Professor Buckman, in his "Corinium," speaks of a true Roman well existing in the centre of the camp, sunk through the various strata of the oolitic rock down to the clay beneath. I can find no trace of this, but there are one or two likely-looking hollows in which a little excavation might be interesting. On the outside of the camp, towards the east, is a remarkable round barrow, 4 feet high and 35 feet in diameter; this is protected by a mound 70 feet square and 2 feet 6 inches high. At a distance of over 300 yards from the main position is another line of earthworks, consisting of a single bank, in some places five feet high, running on a curved line, and thus enclosing a very large area, probably for flocks and herds. Several relics of antiquity have been found on Leckhampton Hill, including a bronze helmet, spear-heads, coins, pottery, flint arrow-heads, &c.; and some human skeletons have been discovered at various times. 

See "Archaeologia," vol. XIX, p171. Also "Archaeological Journal," vol. XII, p9. Also Bigland's "History of Gloucestershire," vol.II, p148. Also Buckman's "Corinium," p5. Also "Proceedings Cott. Nat. Field Club," vol. VI, p209. Also "Journal of Archaeological Association," vol.I, p43.Also "Transactions Bristol and Glou. Archae. Soc.," 1879‑80, p206."

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."

Experimental archaeology 3: Dr Cleal the potter

Clay, tempering, water, and Cleal are the necessary requirements for these pots which Ros made for the experimental archaeology open day in 1988 or 1989 - Dr Phillpotts is unclear about which year - can anyone recall?  Having enlarged the photo I can see that Ros is applying some fingertip decoration to the pot in her hands.  I think I can see, but it may just be a trick of the light, some colour applied to the pot sitting in front of her.