Southern England
Wales
Western England
Overview
What is a Hill Fort? At the risk of pointing out the obvious, they are very large circular defensive enclosures, protected by one or a series of steep ditches carved out of the earth, and they can usually be found occupying prominent hilltop positions, overlooking areas of strategic importance; sentinels keeping watch over the horizon. The foundations of some can be traced back to the Bronze Age, though their heyday came in the Iron Age after 500 B.C., especially in the centuries leading up to and including the Roman Invasion of 43 A.D. The Mediterranean influence brought this culture to a swift end, though it underwent a reprise after the departure of the Legions in 410 A.D. Having been instructed to "look to your own defence", the native Britons obeyed and began to reoccupy Hill Forts in response to the Anglo-Saxon threat; who in their turn, centuries later during the Viking Age, themselves followed suit.
Hill Forts can be found all across the British Isles, though they are most prevalent in Southern and particularly Western England; the Welsh border country is positively infested with them. This frontier has always been contentious; the Romans built numerous forts along it; the Anglo-Saxon King Offa dug his eponymous dyke from the River Dee to the mouth of the Severn; and in the centuries following the Norman Conquest a vast chain of castles were erected by the English, in locations and at distances not so very far removed from the Hill Forts of an earlier age. Over a period of some 2,000 years, therefore, the English side of the border has been occupied and controlled by several very different peoples, yet it would appear that their purpose here has always been the same; to keep out the troublesome Welsh.
The only tribe we know of who inhabited this general area, naturally at the time of the Roman Conquest and the dawn of writing, are the Cornovii. It could be that the Forts we find scattered across the Midlands arose out of this tribe's desire for a grand series of defensive works to secure their frontiers and interior against the envy of less happy lands. However, the Forts tend to pre-date the Roman Invasion by as much as 500 years, and so, given the habit of tribal communities to combine into ever larger power blocs over a period of centuries, it seems likely that a single large tribe encompassing such an area did not exist in these times, rather a plethora of much smaller communities who, presumably, built their own places of refuge in a fearful response to the endeavours of their neighbours; a sort of Iron Age arms race. We cannot know.
Yet at the time of the Roman Invasion, most of the Forts in this wide region were likely under the control of the Cornovii. At the centre of it all was their tribal capital, the Wrekin; the Ayres Rock of Shropshire, which dominates the surrounding terrain. The Roman road of Watling Street skirts its base and runs directly through their city of Viriconium, which lies in its shadow. Stand on the site of the old road, just in front of the Forum colonnade, and no less than twelve Hill Forts are visible to the naked eye on a clear day; all of them formidable, all of them dominating their surroundings, none of them routinely accessible.
In this part of the world, Hill Forts come in clusters. It seems reasonable to speculate that these groupings represent tribal areas, perhaps permanently manned by look-outs in visual touch with the others, possibly by beacon. In times of attack by marauding warbands or other tribes, local families could withdraw into the fort until the danger was past or a counter-attack could be mounted; though by necessity this could only be a temporary state of affairs as a shortage of water would soon become apparent and, as far as is known, no cisterns or wells have ever been located in these structures. Yet we might imagine what an enemy felt as he came within sight of a Fort, taking note of its steep, almost sheer ramparts, topped with a wooden palisade bristling with spearmen and slingers; confident in the indomitability of their position. Until the arrival of the Roman Legions, with their superior organisation and preparedness, surely only the most determined of foes would have been able to summon the will to assault such an imposing obstacle.
Hill Forts, therefore, may be thought of as wholly defensive structures, utterly pragmatic and harbouring nothing of the ceremonial. Yet there may be exceptions. If you happen to live in the South of England and are in the habit of emptying your dog along the Ridgeway, or tearing up its surface with a trail bike, you may take the view that Alfred Watkins might have been on to something with his "Old Straight Track" theory. There are a number of Hill Forts sited along this ancient trading route, stretching 200 miles from the Wash to the Dorset coast, and they are strung out at regular intervals, almost in the manner of railway stations or motorway service areas. The inference is that the gentle, rolling slopes of the Malborough Downs provided a relatively safe passage along which traders could move their goods or drovers their herds, far removed from the hidden dangers and rough-going of the heavily wooded valleys that dominated the English landscape in the ancient world. Anyone who walks this section of the Ridgeway, as I have done, will notice that they are each within a comfortable day's walk of the next, and so, although the forts are well-sited defensive structures, it may be that they also acted as secure way stations; overnight hostelries for man and beast.
We may also take the medieval model for castles, and imagine that Hill Forts were also the administrative centre of the community; home to a tribal king or the local chief; the beating heart of cultural and economic life, where men and women would come to trade, buy goods at the market, or seek judgement in a matter of law. It is known that the interiors of Forts were commonly filled with numerous buildings; did the community as a whole live in them, a select few, or was there some other purpose? Either way, occupying quite pivotal roles in matters of defence, and possibly also in administration and commerce, Hill Forts clearly had a central position in Iron Age life.
