Ambresbury Banks is the name given to the remains of an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

Epping Forest Epping Forest is a area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the London ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, England.

Description

The fort encircles an area of 4.5

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

s (11

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s) and is surrounded by a single bank of 2 m (6 ft) in height, together with a ditch. There is a small

counterscarp A scarp and a counterscarp are the inner and outer sides, respectively, of a ditch or moat used in fortifications. Attackers (if they have not bridged the ditch) must descend the counterscarp and ascend the scarp. In permanent fortifications th ...

bank on the outside lip of the ditch. The defences now have 6 major breaks in their circumference; only one appears to be original. This is approached from the north west by a

trapezoid A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...

al causeway. The ends of the bank at this point were

revetted A revetment in stream restoration, river engineering or coastal engineering is a facing of impact-resistant material (such as stone, concrete, sandbags, or wooden piles) applied to a bank or wall in order to absorb the energy of incoming water an ...

with coursed puddingstone blocks. The width of the passageway was sufficient to suggest double gates, but no central

posthole In archaeology a posthole or post-hole is a cut feature used to hold a surface timber or stone. They are usually much deeper than they are wide; however, truncation may not make this apparent. Although the remains of the timber may survive, most p ...

s were found. Finds at the site have included shards of red, grey and black pottery,

flints Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

and flint arrow heads, and lumps of baked clay. These suggest a construction date of around 700 BC and occupation until 42 AD. The area within and around the fort is now completely

wooded A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

, although in Iron Age times it would have been cleared of trees to enable a better field of view, and for

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

. This has been suggested by evidence of

wild service tree ''Sorbus torminalis'', with common names wild service tree, chequers, and checker tree, is a species of tree in the mountain ash or rowan genus (''Sorbus'') of the rose family (Rosaceae), that is native to Europe, parts of northern Africa and we ...

s, which are an indicator of regrown forest. The Ambresbury Banks site has been examined archaeologically 9 times; the first excavation was by

Augustus Pitt-Rivers Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (14 April 18274 May 1900) was an English officer in the British Army, ethnologist, and archaeologist. He was noted for innovations in archaeological methodology, and in the museum display o ...

in 1881. Ambresbury Banks is a

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 and d ...

Legend

According to legend, it is the site of the last stand by

Boudica Boudica or Boudicca (, known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, and in Welsh as ()), was a queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe, who led a failed uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61. She ...

against the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

in the year 61. There is no evidence to support this. Another legend contends that the construction and name derive from the fifth-century hero

Ambrosius Aurelianus Ambrosius Aurelianus ( cy, Emrys Wledig; Anglicised as Ambrose Aurelian and called Aurelius Ambrosius in the ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' and elsewhere) was a war leader of the Romano-British who won an important battle against the Anglo-Sa ...

, so contradicting the supposed connection to the first-century battle; other theories for the location of the battlefield include

Mancetter Mancetter is a village and civil parish on the southeastern outskirts of Atherstone in North Warwickshire, at the crossing of Watling Street over the River Anker. The population had reduced from 2,449 to 2,339 at the 2011 census. It is situated ...

in Warwickshire and Kings Cross in London. Nevertheless, Ambresbury Banks forms, along with

Loughton Camp Loughton Camp is an Iron Age (~500 BC) Hill fort in Epping Forest,Wallbury Camp, Little Hadham, Barkway and Littlebury, a line of hill-forts that arguably delineate the disputed territories of the warring

Trinovantes The Trinovantēs (Common Brittonic: *''Trinowantī'') or Trinobantes were one of the Celtic tribes of Pre-Roman Britain. Their territory was on the north side of the Thames estuary in current Essex, Hertfordshire and Suffolk, and included lan ...

and

Catuvellauni The Catuvellauni (Common Brittonic: *''Catu-wellaunī'', "war-chiefs") were a Celtic tribe or state of southeastern Britain before the Roman conquest, attested by inscriptions into the 4th century. The fortunes of the Catuvellauni and their k ...

. Ellis, Peter Berresford ''A Guide to Early Celtic Remains in Britain''. London: Constable. 1991

References

{{Iron Age hillforts in England Hill forts in Essex History of Essex Epping Forest District