Bank and ditch of Caesar's Camp, Bracknell - geograph

Caesars Camp Bracknell Forest Digital Terrain Model

Caesar's Camp is an Iron Age hill fort around 2400 years old. It is located just in Crowthorne civil parish to the south of

Bracknell Bracknell () is a large town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, the westernmost area within the Greater London Built-up Area, Greater London Urban Area and the administrative centre of the Bracknell Forest, Borough of Bracknell Forest. It l ...

in the English county of

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

. It falls within the Windsor Forest and is well wooded, although parts of the fort have now been cleared of some trees. The area is managed by the Forestry Commission but owned by Crown Estate, and is open and accessible to the public. The hill fort covers an area of about 17.2 acres (7 hectares) and is surrounded by a mile-long ditch, making it one of the largest in southern England.

Etymology

The origin of the name "Caesar's Camp" is unknown. However, the hill fort is close to the

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

known as the Devil's Highway, and this may have led Medieval mapmakers to attribute the structure (wrongly) to the Romans.

History

Caesar's Camp is thought to have been established around 500–300BC. It is the only hill fort of its type that has been identified in east Berkshire. Because the area had a thick bed of sandstone beneath the top layers of soil, it was likely not suitable for farming – the community at Caesar's Camp was therefore dependent on the produce of neighbouring settlements. Caesar's Camp was therefore most likely used as an assembly point and a marketplace. Its huge outer walls and dump rampart also suggest that it was used as a safe haven in case of attack. Caesar's Camp - geograph

Caesar's Camp appears to have fallen under the rule of Cunobelin, king of the Catuvellauni tribe in the first century AD from a coin discovered in the interior. Soon after, the Romans invaded England; after this time, there is no evidence that Caesar's Camp continued to exist as an inhabited community. A road from its south entrance was later built, connecting it to the

Devil's Highway (Roman Britain) The Devil's Highway was a Roman road in Britain connecting Londinium (London) to Calleva Atrebatum ( Silchester) via Pontes ( Staines). The road was the principal route to the west of Britain during the Roman period but whilst maintained f ...

. There is a small Roman settlement about halfway along this road, known as Wickham Bushes, which has yielded pottery and other Roman artifacts. The main

connected

Londinium Londinium, also known as Roman London, was the capital of Roman Britain during most of the period of Roman rule. It was originally a settlement established on the current site of the City of London around AD 47–50. It sat at a key cross ...

with

Calleva Atrebatum Calleva Atrebatum ("Calleva of the Atrebates") was an Iron Age oppidum, the capital of the Atrebates tribe. It then became a walled town in the Roman province of Britannia, at a major crossroads of the roads of southern Britain. The modern villa ...

, the tribal capital of the

Atrebates The Atrebates (Gaulish: *''Atrebatis'', 'dwellers, land-owners, possessors of the soil') were a Belgic tribe of the Iron Age and the Roman period, originally dwelling in the Artois region. After the tribes of Gallia Belgica were defeated by Caes ...

, about 10 miles to the west in Hampshire. A redoubt roughly 40 m across in the fort is thought to be part of a defence line built in 1792 in preparation for the Napoleonic Wars.

Description

The layout consists of a number of steep banks and ditches in the shape of an oak leaf, enclosing a large flat area of a settlement. The main entrance is at its northern end (at the tip of the leaf) and is very well defended with multiple banks and a sinuous entrance road. The banks to the side of the entrance are very steep, guiding any entrants along the way. It is north of the

known as the Devil's Highway which connected

(Silchester). It is within the Crowthorne Woods part of Swinley Forest crown plantation and is located off Nine Mile Ride approximately from the Look Out visitor centre. Much of the fort is covered by mature broadleaf and

coniferous Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant ...

trees, although some of the

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

plantation on the southern part of the fort has been cleared, and the ground reverted to heathland and scrub. On clear days, central

and Crowthorne, including Broadmoor hospital, are visible from its highest points. The camp falls within the Broadmoor to Bagshot Woods and Heaths

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 ...

, and forms part of the northern edge of the SSI. The zone protects numerous rare birds such as the woodlark and nightjar, as well as its diverse insect life and fauna. It is an entirely hand-built complex. The camp has suffered significant erosion, both natural and man-made. Efforts have been made by Bracknell Forest Council to restore some of the natural parts. A geophysical survey (examining the sub-structures) of 2 ha in the southern part of the fort was undertaken in 1995 before the restoration work. It found some evidence for sustained occupation and structures; the survey did find a ditch type anomaly within the western ramparts and a scatter of pit type anomalies.

1978 People's Free Festival

The site was reoccupied between 29 August and 8 September 1978, when it became the location of the last of the

Windsor Free Festival The Windsor Free Festival was a British Free Festival held in Windsor Great Park from 1972 to 1974. Organised by some London commune dwellers, notably Ubi Dwyer and Sid Rawle, it was in many ways the forerunner of the Stonehenge Free Festival, pa ...

s in 1978, after the forced removal of those attempting to attend the

People's Free Festival Free festivals are a combination of music, arts and cultural activities, for which often no admission is charged, but involvement is preferred. They are identifiable by being multi-day events connected by a camping community without centralised c ...

, in Windsor Great Park, by police.

References

External links