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.

Roundhouse Village Entranceway - Shurely shome mishtake?

"You are looking out over the remains of the Entranceway to the Round House Village that was built about 500BC. This was protected by a bastion on either side, and the observation platform where you are now standing was built on the site of the southern bastion. Between the bastions was a set of gates with a walkway above them. These in turn were protected by a defensive hookwork wall (the remains of which may be seen to your right) that was entered through an outer gate. A visitor could be kept between the two sets of gates and questioned before entering the village."

All of which is all very well, except for the fact that none of the above makes much sense now that the information board, which C-H-M snapped at Easter this year, is no longer mounted on top of the rampart on the observation platform, now destroyed, but instead on the lefthand side of the entrance through the rampart. I suspect there may be some confused grockles ...

Update: Dr Ferris observes: "In the reconstruction drawing I think the Iron Age defenders of Crickley should be depicted occupied in fending off that massive butterfly. It could really do some damage otherwise."

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.

Savage 1988: 8. The Round House Village

A return, with thanks to Richard Savage and the Crickley Hill Trust, to the second hillfort as described in Richard's 1988 booklet:

"8 The Round House Village 

In the sixth century BC, after an interval which may have been short, a village was established on the site by a community with quite different traditions of housebuilding.  Just inside the entrance stood a great  round house, 15 m in diameter.  It was a type whose successful construction attests the highest standards of carpentry and engineering attained in south Britain at the time, for the peak of its thatched conical roof stood eleven  metres high or more, with no central support.  It was accompanied by a number of smaller round houses.  This village too was provided with four-post granaries.  There is no reason to doubt that the community was broadly the same kind and size as its predecessor.  

Substantial progress was made in rebuilding and strengthening the defences in the vulnerable eastern sector.  The old wall, much of which had slaked to a powdery mortar-like aggregation, had already been patched with lengths of walling hastily built from the rubble of its destruction.  Now it was covered and extended with new stonework, quarried from pits immediately behind it in the interior and from extensions of the old ditch outside it.  The new defence was ambitious; perhaps 5 or 6m high, with a walkway along the top and another platform, whose purpose in defence is not clear, part way down the front.  It may be structural, the result of an attempt to build a high wall Crickley on a broad, firm base, in order to make a visually impressive and bristling series of battlements towards the eastern approaches.  The old entrance was protected by new features: a bastion on either side and a hook-work which compelled the visitor to turn his unshielded right side to the north bastion, and its guards, as he entered.  The construction of a second, outer wall was begun. 

[Photo: the largest round house.  This reconstruction gives it the greatest practicable height; it may have been lower.  Part of the roof is unthatched to show the construction J. Eltham] 

The village was destroyed before the re-fortification could be finished.  Was the work undertaken in response to a threat?  Or was the attack intended to root out an over-mighty power before it became impregnable?  It is unlikely that we shall ever know.  The hill-fort at Leckhampton hill, 3 km away, may have been occupied at the same time as the second hillfort at Crickley, and it, too, was destroyed by burning. 

The destruction of the second hillfort seems to have in place no later than 400 BC, and at present there is nothing to suggest that the hill was occupied again before the Roman conquest, although evidence of later Iron Age occupation may yet be found.  There were burials of the late Iron Age less than 1 km away on Barrow Wake, including that containing the Birdlip mirror and other fine metalwork of the last decades before the Roman conquest, which can now be seen in Gloucester Museum.  We do not know where their occupants had lived.  The stonework of the defences crumbled slowly.  It was still at least partly standing four centuries later, in Roman times. 

[Photo: the final Iron Age wall and illustration: the round house village, c 500BC R. Morgan]"

The photograph on the second page, showing the final Iron Age wall, also appears at page 118 of "Crickley Hill: The Hillforts Defences" (Dixon and the Crickley Hill Trust 1994): from the examination of the full-page photograph there I can identify Anna Collinge and Bernie Dawson silhouetted against the skyline, with, just below them, Paul Noakes, a woman I can't identify, Mike Taylor, and John Parry.  Just out the right, throwing a shape, Dave Southwood.

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 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)"

Cunliffe on Crickley Hill

I remember being taught to sing a ditty by David Southwood with the following lyrics: "When this bloody dig is over, no more trowelling for me: I will go and put my feet up and watch Barry Cunliffe on TV."  I'm afraid that I can't provide a TV clip of Professor Cunliffe on the blog but I am grateful to the Secretary of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for permission to reproduce this extract from the presidential address that Barry Cunliffe gave the Society in 1984:

"Gloucestershire and the Iron Age of Southern Britain

By Barry Cunliffe

Presidential Address Delivered at the Council House, Bristol, 24 March 1984

But these hilltop enclosures, whatever their function, were not the only defended sites of the Earliest period.  The excavation of the strongly-fortified promontory fort of Budbury just over the border in Wiltshire has produced a mass of contemporary occupation material including highly-decorated pottery of All Cannings Cross type.  In Gloucestershire, Crickley Hill with its substantial stone-built and timber-laced rampart (Crickley period 2) must belong to this period, for it has produced three radio-carbon dates suggested of construction in the eighth century BC (Dixon 1972; 1976).  Philip Dixon's large-scale excavation here is an outstanding importance for the evidence it is providing of the Earliest and Early phases of the Iron Age in Gloucestershire. Inside the gate of the period 2 fort he has discovered a number of four-post buildings together with several long rectangular structures which are either houses (as the excavator prefers to see them) or rows of four-, five-, and six-post "granaries", some of them in fenced enclosures.  At any event the massiveness of the Crickley 2 defences and the density of buildings within, combined with a comparatively small area closed, serves to distinguish Crickley from the broadly contemporary hilltop enclosures, suggesting that the fort was occupied by a community of some status.  Thus we can begin to see a pattern emerged with a few very strongly-defended forts like Crickley and Budbury possibly representing the residences of the elite, while the larger hilltop enclosures may have been pastoral structures serving larger communities.  That the period was one of some stress is shown by the destruction of Crickley 2 by fire and its partial rebuilding in period 3a.

It was during the Early period in Wessex that hillforts seem suddenly to have proliferated.  This may well have been the case in Gloucestershire but the evidence is rather less clearly defined. At Crickley however, in period 3b, there is dramatic evidence for the massive rebuilding of the defences with complex outworks to protect the entrance.  A single radiocarbon assessment suggests the construction date may have been in the sixth or fifth century BC.  Excavations within the fort showed that the layout of the settlement had changed, the exclusively rectangular structures giving way to a new layout dominated by a very large roundhouse sited just inside the gate.  The nearby hillfort of Leckhampton, defended by a timber-laced rampart with stone fronting-wall, is thought to have been built at about the same time; it too could boast an entrance of monumental proportion."

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.