Castle Ditches
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Castle Ditches
Castle Ditches is the site of an Iron Age trivallate hillfort in the south-east of Tisbury parish in Wiltshire, England. It is probable that its ancient name was ''Spelsbury''; it was referred to as ''Willburge'' in Tisbury's charter of 984 A.D. Its shape is roughly triangular, and follows the contours of the small hill upon which it sits. The earthworks comprise a triple row of ramparts and ditches, now covered on three sides by woodland. There is a large entrance towards the south-east, where there is the shallowest incline of the hill; but there is also a narrow slit on the opposite side. The area within the site encompasses nearly , and the greatest height of the ramparts is about . Castle Ditches was recorded as a Scheduled Monument in 1932. Location The site is at , about south-east of Tisbury village. The hill has a summit of 193m AOD and overlooks the valley of the River Nadder to the north. Public footpaths surround the site, but the land is privately owned. See al ...
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Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to the west. The largest settlement is Swindon, and Trowbridge is the county town. The county has an area of and a population of 720,060. The county is mostly rural, and the centre and south-west are sparsely populated. After Swindon (183,638), the largest settlements are the city of Salisbury (41,820) and the towns of Chippenham (37,548) and Trowbridge (37,169). For local government purposes, the county comprises two unitary authority areas: Swindon and Wiltshire. Undulating chalk downlands characterize much of the county. In the east are Marlborough Downs, which contain Savernake Forest. To the south is the Vale of Pewsey, which separates the downs from Salisbury Plain in the centre of the county. The south-west is also downland, ...
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British Iron Age
The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, which had an Iron Age Ireland, independent Iron Age culture of its own. The Iron Age is not an archaeological horizon of common artefacts but is rather a locally-diverse cultural phase. The British Iron Age followed the Bronze Age Britain, British Bronze Age and lasted in theory from the first significant use of iron for tools and weapons in Britain to the Romano-British culture, Romanisation of the southern half of the island. The Romanised culture is termed Roman Britain and is considered to supplant the British Iron Age. The tribes living in Britain during this time are often popularly considered to be part of a broadly-Celts, Celtic culture, but in recent years, that has been disputed. At a minimum, "Celtic" is a linguistic ter ...
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Hillfort
A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roman Empire, Roman period. The fortification usually follows the contours of a hill and consists of one or more lines of Earthworks (Archaeology), earthworks or stone Rampart (fortification), ramparts, with stockades or defensive walls, and external ditches. If enemies were approaching, the inhabitants would spot them from a distance. Prehistoric Europe saw a growing population. It has been estimated that in about 5000 BC during the Neolithic between 2 million and 5 million lived in Europe; in the Late Iron Age it had an estimated population of around 15 to 30 million. Outside Greece and Italy, which were more densely populated, the vast majority of settlements in the Iron Age were small, with ...
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Tisbury, Wiltshire
Tisbury is a large village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish approximately west of Salisbury in the English county of Wiltshire. With a population at the 2011 census of 2,253 it is a centre for communities around the upper River Nadder and Vale of Wardour. The parish includes the hamlets of Upper Chicksgrove and Wardour, Wiltshire, Wardour. Tisbury is the largest settlement within the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (larger nearby settlements such as Salisbury and Shaftesbury are just outside it). Prehistory The area has some Paleoanthropology, paleoanthropological significance. Evidence of early human activity comes from the Middle Gravel at Swanscombe Heritage Park, Swanscombe, Kent, a 400,000-year-old stratum, in which skull fragments of a young woman were found. Along with the remains were several fragments of Pseudodiplocoenia oblonga (also known as Isastraea oblonga), one of four Upper Jurassic species of coral unique ...
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Castle Ditches Digital Terrain Model
A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private fortified house, fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a mansion, palace, and villa, whose main purpose was exclusively for ''pleasance'' and are not primarily fortresses but may be fortified. Use of the term has varied over time and, sometimes, has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th- and 20th-century homes built to resemble castles. Over the Middle Ages, when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain wall (fortification), curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were commonplace. European-style castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries after the fall of the Carolingian Empire, which resulted ...
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Scheduled Monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visual disturbance, and destruction are grouped under the term "Designation (heritage assets), designation". The protection provided to scheduled monuments is given under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, which is a different law from that used for listed buildings (which fall within the town and country planning system). A heritage asset is a part of the historic environment that is valued because of its historic, archaeological, architectural or artistic interest. Only some of these are judged to be important enough to have extra legal protection through designation. There are about 20,000 scheduled monuments in England representing about 37,000 heritage assets. Of the tens of thousands of scheduled monuments in the UK ...
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River Nadder
The River Nadder is a tributary of the River Avon, Hampshire, River Avon, flowing in south Wiltshire, England. Course The river flows north from Ludwell, Wiltshire, Ludwell to West End where it is joined by the Ferne Brook, close to the Lower Coombe and Ferne Brook Meadows site of special scientific interest (Site of Special Scientific Interest, SSSI). At Wardour, Wiltshire, Wardour it is joined by the River Sem. The river then flows east through Tisbury, Wiltshire, Tisbury, where it is joined by the Fonthill Lake, Fonthill Brook, and then onto Barford St Martin and Burcombe before reaching Wilton, Wiltshire, Wilton. Near Quidhampton, Wiltshire, Quidhampton, the River Wylye, Wylye joins from the north. After passing Harnham, the Nadder joins the Avon near Salisbury Cathedral. Including its headwaters, the river's length is about . Water quality The Environment Agency measures the water quality of the river systems in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may ...
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List Of Hillforts In England
See also * List of hill forts in Scotland * List of hill forts in Wales *Iron Age, British Iron Age, prehistory References ;Bibliography * Further reading * * * External links * A crowd-sourced project to map the hillforts of Britain and Ireland. {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Hill Forts In England List of hill forts Iron Age sites in England Hill forts England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ... Hill forts ...
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Iron Age Sites In England
Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, being mainly deposited by meteorites in its metallic state. Extracting usable metal from iron ores requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching , about 500 °C (900 °F) higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BC and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys – in some regions, only around 1200 BC. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In the modern world, iron alloys, such as steel, stainless steel, cast iron and special steels, are by far the most common industrial metals, due to their mechanical propert ...
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Hill Forts In Wiltshire
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, and is usually applied to peaks which are above elevation compared to the relative landmass, though not as prominent as mountains. Hills fall under the category of slope landforms. Terminology The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally considered to be not as tall, or as steep as a mountain. Geographers historically regarded mountains as hills greater than above sea level. In contrast, hillwalkers have tended to regard mountains as peaks above sea level. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' also suggests a limit of and Whittow states "Some authorities regard eminences above as mountains, those below being referred to as hills." Today, a mountain is usually defined in the UK and Ireland as any summit at least high, while the UK government's Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 defined mountainous areas (for the ...
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