More information : (SU 20907970) Liddington Castle (NAT) Hill Fort (NR). (1) A roughly oval-shaped Iron Age hillfort (see air photographs (3)), approximately eight acres in extent, with bank, ditch and counterscarp bank. Sarsens may have been used to face the main bank. There is one entrance on the south-east (2), which Passmore suggests may be of late 18th c origin. Andrews & Dury's map of 1773 shows a trackway passing through the south-east and north-east perimeter of the hillfort.
Between 1896 and 1900 flint digging took place in the north-east part of the interior. During this period numerous Early Iron Age objects were collected by Passmore including a bronze awl, bronze ear-ring (Phase 2), many Iron Age 'A' sherds, fragments of saddle querns, two spindle whorls and pieces of iron (parts of a bucket?). Probably all Phase 2. Iron Age 'A' sherds were also found by Meyrick. The finds formerly in Passmore's private collection went to the Ashmolean Museum (2).
Liddington Castle was perhaps known as Eorthbyrig in AD901, by Aubrey (6) as Battlesbury in 1670, and as Badbury Camp by Hoare. (2-7) The IA hillfort, which is situated on a level hilltop site, is as described. The simple causewayed entrance, which is original, is located on the east side. The second "entrance" shown on the Andrews and Dury's map is traceable as a trackway running over the ramparts on the west side.
The outer rampart and ditch on the south and south-west of the earthwork have been extensively mutilated by haphazard chalk and flint quarrying. Well preserved. Published survey 1:2500 revised. (8)
SU 209 797. Liddington Castle. Listed in gazetteer as a univallate hillfort covering 3.0ha. (9)
Excavation in 1976 showed that the rampart was constructed in at least 4 phases. The latest phase yielded some pottery of Roman type,possibly of C5th or C6th,while several sherds from the back of the rampart may be post-Roman. (10)
Other finds (not from the above excavation) include Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British sherds and a Romano-British bronze figurine of Cupid (11-14). Liddington Castle was possibly the site of the battle of Badon c.500AD. (15)
Final report on the 1976 excavations. (16)
The site was surveyed at 1:1000 by EH in 2000 as part of the Countryside Agency's Ridgeway Heritage Project.
The hillfort has a causewayed entrance to the E and another, blocked in antiquity, to the W. The ramparts, of at least four phases (16), were first constructed in the 7th-6th centuries BC; the later phases are not securely dated. The counterscarp has an unfinished appearance in places and the ramparts have been disturbed by later activity, especially quarrying. High vegetation at the time of survey masked much of the interior but some features were surveyed; four deep holes are probably of recent military origin (pace Authority 16); other depressions are largely due to quarrying but a few could be hut circles. Geophysical survey of the interior (17a) recovered a few pits and gullies and one substantial circular feature. A linear to the W of the fort (SU 27 NW 140) and two slight features to E and S may represent earlier land divisions. There is little evidence for Roman activity - the Cupid figurine is not, in fact, from the site (see Authority 16); nor is there evidence for early medieval occupation, as previously claimed.
Further details are held in the NMR. (17)
The Iron Age hillfort described by the previous authorities has been mapped from aerial photographs. (18-19) |