<< Our Photo Pages >> St Dennis Hill Fort - Hillfort in England in Cornwall
Submitted by AngieLake on Tuesday, 19 July 2005 Page Views: 23840
Iron Age and Later PrehistorySite Name: St Dennis Hill Fort Alternative Name: Dimilioc, St Dennis churchyard, St Denis, St Denys, St DionysiusCountry: England County: Cornwall Type: Hillfort
Nearest Town: St Austell Nearest Village: St Dennis
Map Ref: SW951583
Latitude: 50.388796N Longitude: 4.883861W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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I have visited· I would like to visit
ChasDrown visited on 1st Jan 1974 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 5 Access: 5 On a fine day the views are extensive and castle an Dinnas for example is easily visible.
This was the year I first visited St Dennis, I have been back many times since. A considerable number of the graves in St Dennis churchyard (completely within the old hillfort) are ancestors of mine.
lucasn visited - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 5 Access: 4
BodMoor mikeaitch AngieLake have visited here
Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3 Ambience: 5 Access: 4.5
St Dennis church stands within an ancient dynas (dinas) or fort on a prominent hilltop south of the A30 and Goss Moor. The village of St Dennis, home to many workers in the local industry - china clay - covers the hillside below it to the south and east. Due north is Castle-an-Dinas, well marked from the A30, and sited about the same distance north from that trunk road as St Dennis dinas is south of it.
According to Craig Weatherhill in his excellent guide, Cornovia:
"St Dennis church (named not after the saint, but the dynas - fort) stands in the centre of this site. This strikingly conical hill was formerly surmounted by two Iron Age ramparts defending an area 113m in diameter. The line of the inner bank, which may have been stone-built, is followed by the churchyard wall. Only faint traces of the outer rampart can be seen, on the north and east sides, about 18m beyond the churchyard wall."
On the Genuki.org.uk website:
"It is named after St Denys the Martyr, although as the church is on a hill top, the name may be a corruption of the Cornish word Dinas, meaning 'Hill Fort'. Dimilioc represents a smaller hillfort inland 20 miles south of Tintagel now occupied by the parish church of St Dennis - it is within an estate listed as Dimelihoc in the Domesday Book of 1086. In the reign of Henry VIII, St Denys was the only parish in Cornwall with the prefix 'Saint'."
There is a farm in the valley to the southwest called Carsella. According to http://homepages.tesco.net/~k.wasley/Dennis.htm:
"Carsella:
This is also mentioned in the doomsday book as Karsalan. It originated as a fortress, the only other Caer or Kar mentioned being Carworgie in St Columb Major Parish. [to the NW]. Carsella protected the dinas in the south, its most vulnerable point. Charles Henderson found traces of a very ancient village dating back to between 100 BC and 11 AD. Carsella farm house is the oldest house in St Dennis almost 500 years old. The Doomsday records that Carsella was a Manor under the same Baron as Domelihoc. The Count of Martair."
Before that paragraph, the author gives an excerpt from 'Chronicles of British Kings' by Geoffrey of Gloucester:
"King Arther, (sic) king of the Britons took refuge in the South west from the Angles, a Turkonic (sic) race who invaded Britain during the 5th century. Demelihoc was a secondary fortress of Gorlios, King of Cornwall. We assume Dimelhoc was a dinas of dennis on which the church is built. During the fight with Arther, Gorlios put his wife Igeme in his strongest fort, Castle an Dinas, and he commanded Demelihoc hoping that he would survive. He was slain and his wife captured. She afterwards married Uther of round table fame."
"Domellick Farm: This is the modern name for the estate of Domelihoc which was recorded in the doomsday book."
(Domellick Farm lies a short distance to the west of the hillfort.)
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