Banbury Hillfort, or Banbury Hill Camp, is an Iron Age hillfort, about south of

Sturminster Newton Sturminster Newton is a town and civil parish in the Blackmore Vale area of Dorset, England. It is situated on a low limestone ridge in a meander of the River Stour. The town is at the centre of a large dairy agriculture region, around which ...

and north-west of the village of

Okeford Fitzpaine Okeford Fitzpaine is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the English county of Dorset, situated in the Blackmore Vale south of the town of Sturminster Newton. It is sited on a thin strip of greensand under the escarpment ...

in Dorset, England. Banbury Hill Digital Terrain Model

It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Description

The fort is on a low hill: a single bank encloses a roughly circular area of about . The site has been affected in the past by ploughing. Where best preserved, the rampart is wide and above the interior, with an external ditch, visible in places, of width and depth . There is an original entrance on the west side, protected by an external bank wide and high, with traces of an external ditch. This bank, branching out from the north west part of the rampart, runs south-west and then curves towards the fort, so that there is a passage into the fort from the south, at one point down to about wide. There are no traces of remains in the interior. The rampart (ascertained as a result of excavation in 1986 of a trench for a water pipe) has been found to be of local limestone, with some fragments of flint and chert.

References

{{Iron Age hillforts in England Hill forts in Dorset Scheduled monuments in Dorset

Description

See also

References