Duncorn Hill is an English, landmark, rounded
hill with a flat top close to the
Fosse Way
The Fosse Way was a Roman road built in Britain during the first and second centuries AD that linked Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) in the southwest and Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to the northeast, via Lindinis (Ilchester), Aquae Sulis ( Bath), Corini ...
. It is located on a
limestone plateau south of
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
in
Somerset and summits at above
sea level. The hill's name derives from
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
''din'' for
fort and ''corn'' meaning
horn
Horn most often refers to:
*Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound
** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments
*Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...
shaped.
Geology
![East of south near Wilmington - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/East_of_south_near_Wilmington_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1019147.jpg)
The hill's
bedrock
In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet.
Definition
Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...
is
limestone of the
Great Oolite Group
The Great Oolite Group is a Middle Jurassic stratigraphic unit that outcrops in southern England. It consists of a complex set of marine deposits primarily mudstone and bioclastic ooidal and fine grained limestone, deposited in nearshore to shel ...
with deposits of
fuller's earth containing
fossil shellfish. This is typically covered with a free draining soil layer of , mostly brown or greyish brown but with some yellow patches.
History
It has been speculated Duncorn Hill had been the site of a
Bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
or
Iron Age hill fort. Field investigations were undertaken in 1966, but no evidence of a fort was found. The
scarps previously thought to be part of a man-made structure were shown to be natural geological formations. Investigators found no evidence of the
cairn
A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ).
Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...
s described in
18th century
The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 ( MDCCI) to December 31, 1800 ( MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. During the century, slave trad ...
descriptions. Nevertheless in 1975,
Ralph Whitlock wrote of Iron Age, occupied, hilltop earthworks.
References
Hill forts in Somerset
Iron Age sites in Somerset
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