Mount Caburn is a 150-metre (492 ft) prominent landmark in
East Sussex
East Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Kent to the north-east, West Sussex to the west, Surrey to the north-west, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement ...
,
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 ...
, about one mile (1.6 km) east of
Lewes
Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. The town is the administrative centre of the wider Lewes (district), district of the same name. It lies on the River Ouse, Sussex, River Ouse at the point where the river cuts through the Sou ...
overlooking the village of
Glynde. It is the highest part of an outlier of the
South Downs
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the ...
, separated from the main range by
Glynde Reach, a tributary of the
River Ouse.
Enclosure
On the summit of Caburn are the remains of an
Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
hill fort
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. So ...
. The hill fort has been repeatedly excavated, by
Augustus Pitt Rivers from 1877–78, the Curwens from 1925—26, and again from 1937–38, and the
Sussex Archaeological Society from 1996–98.
It may have the most excavations per site in Britain, with 170 trenches.
[Drewett, P., and Hamilton, S., 2001: Sacred mount or classic hillfort? Current Archaeology, 174: 256-262]
Pollen records (from peat at the southern base) indicate that prior to 2000 BC the hill was covered with dark yew woodlands. The fact that a single Neolithic leaf-shaped arrowhead is the only pre-Bronze Age find on Caburn, despite the extent and duration of excavations, suggests that there was little permanent occupation then.

The summit was initially enclosed in the middle Iron Age (c. 400 BC), with a deep V-shaped ditch and a bank of dumped spoil. Originally the ditch was 8m wide at the top, 2.7m deep, and enclosed an area of 1.9 ha.
[English Nature, 2002: Five Thousand Midsummer Days: the Caburn, its people and wildlife.]
Since before the first excavations, it has been assumed that this enclosure was defensive, making a conventional hill fort. However the most recent excavators have challenged this assumption, arguing instead that the site was a religious enclosure, rather than a military fort or fortified farmstead. They point to the contents of the small pits, the insubstantial rampart, and its weak defensive attributes.
There are over 140 burial pits on Caburn: some are circular, some triangular and some rectangular. Each pit was found to be full of artefacts. Deposits included weapons, tools, pottery, coins, querns, and disarticulated human and animal bones. The most recent excavators argue that these are not random, or mere domestic rubbish, but are structured deposits and appear "ritually charged". The NE corner of the enclosure seemed to have special significance, because the high-status objects were mostly deposited there.
Outside the original rampart, on the northern side, there is a great ditch cut into the chalk. This is the side most vulnerable to attack.

This outer ditch has long been assumed to be a late Iron Age (re-)fortification, perhaps in response to the threat from Rome. That assumption has now been disproved. The excavation of trenches through the chalk dump (the spoil had been dumped in the adjacent valley instead of being used to build a bank) and a small internal bank turned up Romano-British pottery. Therefore the outer ditch is Romano-British or later, perhaps a Saxon measure against Viking raids.
Use
Caburn has only been reoccupied sporadically since the great northern ditch was built, at the
Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
and during Stephen's reign.
It appears that the Caburn was densely grazed during the Roman period, when the hill slopes around were a patchwork of rectangular ploughed fields. Then the hill probably returned to scrub, but by the Norman Conquest the Caburn was heavily grazed again and the hill slopes were ploughed into strips. Both the Roman rectangular fields and the medieval strips are still visible today.
Over later centuries the dominant agricultural activity became sheep grazing. It was on Caburn and other local pastures that
John Ellman reared his famous breed of
Southdown sheep.
During the Second World War two slit trenches and a three-sided
Bren position were dug into Caburn as part of a 'stop-line' to defend against invasion.
Conservation and recreation
Mount Caburn is now legally protected. It lies within the
Lewes Downs SSSI (designated in 1953) and the Mount Caburn National Nature Reserve was established in the mid-1980s. It has been designated a
Special Area of Conservation
A special area of conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...
as an example of orchid-rich chalk grassland. It is home to a good population of
European stonechats.
Caburn is unusual within the South Downs for having a south-facing scarp slope. The site has the largest British population of
burnt-tip orchid. There is also the rare
small-leaved sweet-briar, and the typical
fragrant
An aroma compound, also known as an odorant, aroma, fragrance, flavoring or flavor, is a chemical compound that has a smell or odor. For an individual chemical or class of chemical compounds to impart a smell or fragrance, it must be sufficie ...
and
pyramidal orchids. Invertebrates include
Adonis
In Greek mythology, Adonis (; ) was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone. He was considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity.
The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip ...
and
chalkhill blue butterflies and the scarce
forester moth. Populations of
European stonechats live in scrubby bushes such as
gorse near the golf club and in the valley below, along with other song birds such as
blue tits.
Herring gulls Herring gull is a common name for several birds in the genus ''Larus
''Larus'' is a large genus of gulls with worldwide distribution (by far the greatest species diversity is in the Northern Hemisphere).
Many of its species are abundant and w ...
and
carrion crow
The carrion crow (''Corvus corone'') is a passerine bird of the family Corvidae, native to western Europe and the eastern Palearctic.
Taxonomy and systematics
The carrion crow was one of the many species originally described by Carl Linnaeus ...
s often fly overhead and hundreds of
domestic sheep
Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to ...
graze the area. There is a sheltered cave with a water trough where lost sheep can rest safely if they stray away from the flock on a dark night when the farmer is rounding up the animals.
Arts
In fiction Caburn appears as Wealden Hill in the novel of the same name by
Graeme K Talboys. Caburn also features prominently in the novels and short stories of
John Whitbourn (e.g. ''The Royal Changeling'' and ''Bury My Heart At Southerham (East Sussex)''). Caburn also appears in the children's story ''Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep'' (first published in 1937) by
Eleanor Farjeon. It is mentioned in Kipling's poem "The Run of the Downs."
Name
The hill has only been called Mount Caburn since the end of the 18th century. The origins of the name are disputed.
* The likely etymology of the hill is from the Old English 'Calde burgh' or 'Cold Fort' in 1296, which later became 'Mount Carbone' in the late 18th century.
* It has also been suggested that Caburn may come from the
Welsh 'Caer Bryn' or 'Stronghold hill', yet this is unlikely and widely discredited.
* Some local accounts allege that by the 18th century it was called Carber, and before that it was called Calborough Hill.
[Lusted, A., 1989: A pit-worker's story. Glynde Archivist 9.]
Notes
{{Iron Age hillforts in England
Hills of East Sussex
Hill forts in East Sussex
Glynde