Print of Uley Bury Camp by EJ Burrow 1913

Uley Bury is the long, flat-topped hill just outside

Uley Uley is a village and civil parish in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Elcombe and Shadwell and Bencombe, all to the south of the village of Uley, and the hamlet of Crawley to the north. The village is ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is an impressive multi-vallate, scarp-edge

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 ...

dating from around 300 B.C. Standing some 750 feet (235 metres) above sea level it has views over the

Severn Vale , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

Geology

Uley Bury is a spur of the

Cotswold The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Juras ...

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...

, made up of thick beds of inferior oolitic

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

of the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

period, overlying Bridport Sands. Part of the Bury is a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

(SSSI) famous for abundant fossils of Lower Jurassic age which occur here in the stratum known as the '' Cephalopod Bed''. One particular horizon is especially noted for the

ammonite Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) ...

s it contains, which indicate that the strata are of early ''striatulum'' subzone age. Below in the Bridport Sand strata a thin, isolated

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

layer contains what are elsewhere very rare ammonites, known as ''Haugia variabilis''.

Archaeology

Uley Bury hill fort is a very large

settlement with evidence of occupation from approximately 300BC to 100AD; it covers 32 acres (13 hectares). It is one of a number of hillforts that can be seen along the Cotswold escarpment, other notable examples being Crickley Hill and Painswick Beacon. The Bury is surrounded on all sides, apart from at the northern corner, by steep natural slopes. The hill fort was created by terracing a double line of ramparts – more than a mile in length overall - into the hillsides. Excavations carried out on the north eastern rampart during the 1970s found evidence of how the ramparts were constructed. Finds during this excavation included a crouched burial,

iron currency Iron currency bars are regarded as being objects used by Iron Age people to exchange goods. Materials They were expensive objects, as it would take 25 man-days to produce 1 kilogram of a finished bar, consuming 100 kg of charcoal, usually ...

bars, quern stones, a brooch, and large amounts of pottery. Finds made at other times include a gold coin of the

Dobunni The Dobunni were one of the Iron Age tribes living in the British Isles prior to the Roman conquest of Britain. There are seven known references to the tribe in Roman histories and inscriptions. Various historians and archaeologists have examined ...

, and a silver

Roman 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 letter ...

coin. Aerial photography has revealed extensive crop marks suggesting that there were once numerous dwellings in the interior of the hill fort; however, these have not yet been excavated. Uley Bury is a

Scheduled Ancient 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 ...

. Hetty Pegler's Tump, a notable

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

long barrow Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material repres ...

, and West Hill, the site of a

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...

temple, are both nearby.

Ecology

Uley Bury is an important wildlife habitat because of its unimproved limestone grassland, which has been created by centuries of grazing. The Bury lies in the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) which holds a nationally significant concentration (52%) of all the unimproved Jurassic limestone grassland in the UK. A programme of regular summer grazing designed to conserve the grassland on the Bury was started in 2004.

Location

Uley Bury is located at ; (). The main access is from the Dursley to Stroud road ( B4066) at Crawley Hill, just north of Uley. It can also be accessed from the

Cotswold Way The Cotswold Way is a long-distance footpath, running along the Cotswold Edge escarpment of the Cotswold Hills in England. It was officially inaugurated as a National Trail on 24 May 2007 and several new rights of way have been created. His ...

, and from several other local footpaths and bridleways.

References

* Alan Seville, "Uley Bury and Norbury Hillforts" (1983), Western Archaeological Trust, * Ed. Alan Bebbington, "A History of Uley, Gloucestershire" (2003), The Uley Society,

External links

Gold Stater of the Dobunni found on Uley Bury in 1885 (beware site no longer what it purports to be)

Coaley Wood Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)

Article on the conservation of Cotswold limestone grassland

Article a limited Archaeological dig in 2004 and findings (mentions boundary stones) {{Iron Age hillforts in England Hills of Gloucestershire Hill forts in Gloucestershire Scheduled monuments in Gloucestershire Former populated places in Gloucestershire