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<< Our Photo Pages >> Hod Hill - Hillfort in England in Dorset

Submitted by JimChampion on Monday, 07 October 2002  Page Views: 23058

Iron Age and Later PrehistorySite Name: Hod Hill
Country: England
NOTE: This site is 0.174 km away from the location you searched for.

County: Dorset Type: Hillfort
Nearest Town: Blandford Forum  Nearest Village: Stourpaine
Map Ref: ST856106  Landranger Map Number: 194
Latitude: 50.894698N  Longitude: 2.206119W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3

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Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by JimChampion : Looking west along the earthwork defences on the north side of the hillfort, from the top of the inner rampart at grid ref ST858108. (Vote or comment on this photo)
The mighty iron-age ramparts and ditches on Hod Hill enclose an area of 22 hectares, making it the largest hillfort in Dorset. In addition to the earthwork defences, in the southeast corner there are still traces of hut circles and boundaries of the iron-age settlement.

The site was captured by the Roman army in AD43, who later constructed their own fort in the north-west corner of the original hillfort. This corner is the highest part of the hill and benefits from the natural defence provided by the steep escarpment on the west side that drops down to the River Stour.

Access Hod Hill is in the care of the National Trust and open to the general public at all times. There is a small car park in the valley to the northeast of the fort, alongside the minor road from the A350 to Child Okeford.
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Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by JimChampion : Looking west along the V-shaped ditch on the southern side of the hillfort (at grid ref ST856103), with the Stour Valley beyond. The steep slopes of the hillfort have never been ploughed or sprayed with herbicides or pesticides and support a wide range of downland species. The hill is grazed by sheep and cattle in a programme to maintain it as chalk grassland. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by Horatio : The south Western entrance showing the bivallate defensive works. Hod Hill is an iron age hillfort and one of the largest of it's kind in Dorset. The fort sits on a 143m chalk hill. It is roughly rectangular 600m x 400m with an enclosed area of 54 acres. The fort was inhabited by the Durotriges in the late iron age, there is extensive evidence of settlement inside including platforms for r... (Vote or comment on this photo)

Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by Horatio : Looking down the Eastern ramparts to the south. Times like this I wish I had a drone, to really show off this magnificent fort. Although it was traditionally thought that the hill fort was captured by the Roman Second Legion, this idea now seems unlikely. It is likely that the hillfort had been abandoned by the time the roman army arrived and the many ballista bolts which have been foun... (Vote or comment on this photo)

Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by Horatio : Well, pleasantly surprised at the condition of this hill fort in the Blackmore Vale in Dorset The ditches and the ramparts are still quite imposing unlike many others I've visited. The defences are bivallate(two ditches which this photo shows) the inner rampart probably topped by a palaside. Quite an impregnable defence but not a lot stopped the Romans who after subjagating the inhabitan... (Vote or comment on this photo)

Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by durhamnature : Old plan of the fort from "Journal of British Archaeology" via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)

Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by Andy B : WW2 Aerial photo taken 19th June 1945. From the forthcoming book by Col. Roy M. Stanley II By kind permission of Col. Stanley

Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by JimChampion : Looking down on the entrance at the southeastern corner of the hillfort on Hod Hill (grid ref ST858103). Several Roman ballista bolts were found at this corner of the fort, but there is no evidence of a struggle so it is assumed that the inhabitants surrendered to the Romans, who subsequently built a smaller fort of their own in the opposite corner of the hillfort. Beyond the gate on the left is a...

Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by JimChampion : Looking down at the entrance through the southern defences of Hod Hill hillfort, near the southwest corner at grid ref ST854105. The entrance is presumably Roman-made because it is aligned with the southern entrance to the smaller Roman fort within the larger iron-age fort. The village of Stourpaine is in the distance.

Hod Hill
Hod Hill submitted by JimChampion : Panorama of the tangle of iron-age and Roman earthworks (at grid ref ST856108) on Hod Hill. The invading Romans built a smaller fort in the northwest corner of the iron-age camp after AD43. These lumps and bumps are at the northeast corner of the Roman fort where it meets the northern rampart of the larger "British" (probably Durotrigean) fort.

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"Hod Hill" | Login/Create an Account | 13 News and Comments
  
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Hod Hill visited by Martin Papworth, National Trust by Andy B on Thursday, 06 July 2017
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Martin Papworth writes: We walked along the rampart and I asked the group to stop at the gate and look back and imagine. Beyond Stourpaine, the Dorset landscape faded towards the coast and Poole Harbour.

This is where they had landed and below us the soldiers were arranged into companies ready for attack. The scouts on the hill top, spotted the target and signaled its range and distance to the artillery and then.. it started, awful twangs and whirrings as an avalanche of ballista fell on the chief’s house and compound.

At least, this was Sir Ian Richmond’s story when he excavated the compound in 1956. How else to explain the Roman ballista bolts embedded in the walls and floors of the two round houses there, all angled and pointed in the same direction.

There are no cemeteries or massacre deposits of the war-dead here, unlike Maiden Castle or South Cadbury. Perhaps dismayed by the initial onslaught, they opened the gates and let them in. The round houses were abandoned, piles of sling stones and spear heads were found, left in the cupboards by the front doors. Perhaps the conquerors told them to go at once and leave all weapons.

More at https://archaeologynationaltrustsw.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/camp-bastion-dorset/
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Animals and Hillforts - a faunal profile of the Durotriges by Dave Stewart by Andy B on Sunday, 19 April 2015
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This study introduces faunal data from a new site excavated by the Author at Stourpaine, Dorset, analyses the assemblage from the 1950s excavation of the neighbouring hillfort at Hod Hill and explores the relationship between the sites.
Comparative data are synthesised for Cadbury Castle, Somerset, Maiden Castle, Dorset, Danebury, Hampshire and selected rural sites from their immediate environs. Animal husbandry regimes are compared and contrasted, revealing implications on the social structure of the Durotriges, their culture and the relationship between hillforts and the surrounding community.

No evidence is found to support a strict hierarchy or control from a ‘central place’.
From the Middle Iron Age, rural sites appear to operate as autonomous, self-sufficient units, at least equal in status to their local hillfort. Poor physical condition of stock and rapid changes in animal exploitation around Maiden Castle after AD 43 contrast with the apparent continuity at other sites, reflecting perhaps differing levels of resistance to Roman rule and reinforcing the image of the Durotriges as a loose confederation of independent groups.

The animal bone assemblage from Stourpaine derives from excavations on a multi-period settlement site at Hanford Farm in the field known as Big Ground during 2008 and 2009 (Stewart 2009,2010). The site is on the southern slopes of Hod Hill some 400m from the major Iron Age hillfort and its embedded Roman camp. Sampled features include pits, ditches, general spreads and shallow gullies dating from Early /Middle Iron age to 4th
Century Romano-British period. The area has been under arable cultivation for many years and all finds from ploughsoil or immediate subsoil have been treated as unstratified. Excavation of upper layers was by fork and shovel except for machine stripping of ploughsoil for Trenches 12 and 13 in 2009. Features were excavated by trowel: no sieving was undertaken other than environmental samples. No radiocarbon dating has been undertaken and phasing of the bone assemblage is based on the pottery typology and associated artefacts (after Cunliffe 1987).

Contexts have been dated in broad bands:
Early Iron Age and Middle Iron Age (EIA/MIA) - 800 to 100 B.C. Late Iron Age (LIA)

100 BC to AD 100 Romano-British (RB) - AD 100 to c.400

https://www.academia.edu/11999983/Animals_and_Hillforts_a_faunal_profile_of_the_Durotriges
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Re: Hod Hill by coldrum on Monday, 29 March 2010
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Saturday 27th June 2009 guided walk round Hod Hill - Iron Age Hill Fort & Roman by Andy B on Wednesday, 01 April 2009
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Hod Hill - Iron Age Hill Fort & Roman Fort, Saturday 27th June 2009

Step back in time and learn more about this
spectacular Iron Age hillfort overlooking the
Blackmore Vale by joining the National Trust’s
Regional Archaeologist and an NT Warden on a
guided walk around the Hill fort. Find out about
recent discoveries as the exceptional diversity of
wildlife that can be found on this fascinating site.
Date: Saturday 27th June 2009
Time: 2pm. Meet on the footpath up to Hod Hill
from Stourpaine. (ST 861097)
Cost: Donations

http://www.burtonbradstock.org.uk/What%27s%20on/National%20Trust/West%20Dorset%20Events%2009.pdf
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Re: Hod Hill and Lydsbury Rings by Anonymous on Monday, 12 November 2007
Hod hill is great fun there are hills to clime up and if you are lucky you may find old bits of pottery and things like that. Hod Hill use to be a home to many people. They were called the Romans.People are still finding things from the Roman times now.
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    Re: Hod Hill and Lydsbury Rings by Anonymous on Monday, 11 July 2011
    I regard this as a Celtic fort that the Romans just hijacked. Celts were people too. :)
    [ Reply to This ]
      Re: Hod Hill and Lydsbury Rings by Anonymous on Wednesday, 03 August 2011
      These forts were built by BRITONS, not Celts. Any Celts in Briton were just another bunch of invaders, no different to Romans or Anglo-Saxons.
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      Re: Hod Hill and Lydsbury Rings by angieweekender on Wednesday, 03 August 2011
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      Hodhill was fortified by the Durotriges, a Celtic(Iron Age) tribe c500 BC. New research on the the colonisation of these islands says that we were colonised about 4000Bc when farming was established by the new colonists/invaders.
      http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1764/
      Celtic or Celt refers to a culture that was pan European - Barry Cunliffe -not one distimct race or people! it makes more sense to talk about the Catevaullauni or Belgae, for instance, when referring to peoples of the pre Roman Iron Age, as they were distinct from each other. There is alot of evidence for much coming and going in around our islands.
      The derivation of Britain, Briton, funnily enough is a latin word- britannia which also derives from the Ancient Greek word 'Prettanike'. So the word itself is not an indigenous thing.
      [ Reply to This ]

Re: Hod Hill by TimPrevett on Saturday, 23 September 2006
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Did you get any pics of the Roman fort here? Supposed to be among the best preserved early Roman forts in Britain.
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Re: Hod Hill and Lydsbury Rings by TimPrevett on Saturday, 23 September 2006
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Have you checked ADS Archaeosearch, Jim. Fantastic resource, though can be patchy depending on which county lets them have their records.
http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/search/index.cfm
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Re: Hod Hill and Lydsbury Rings by JimChampion on Monday, 18 September 2006
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This site is referred to as "Hod Hill and Lydsbury Rings" on the MagicMap, but I cannot find any further information on "Lydsbury Rings". Anyone able to help? Is it just an alternative name for the earthworks on the hill?
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Re: Hod Hill by Anonymous on Monday, 13 October 2003
Fantastic place! Brilliant setting and views. have found several Roman artefacts and small gold items with my detector.

Colin.
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    Re: Hod Hill by JimChampion on Sunday, 17 September 2006
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    I'll assume that you didn't notice any of the National Trust signs at the site that say NO METAL DETECTORS in big letters.
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