Pasture east of the Moreton road - geograph

Sutton Walls Hillfort is an elongated ovoid

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 mostl ...

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 ...

located four miles north of the city of

Hereford, England Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population of ...

. It was added to the Sites and Monuments Record in 1988.

History

The Sutton Walls hillfort dates back to the

. By 100 BC defenses began to be constructed in the form of a V shaped ditch and an internal bank. The ditch and groundwork were then reinforced by revetting the banks with timber and stone. The reason for such work being done was because a larger community was establishing itself on top of the fort. The people in the settlement lived in wood and stone huts which were situated within the newly constructed defenses. These very defenses were strengthened around the year 25 AD, in the form of a large wooden perimeter wall enclosing the settlement atop the fort. Archaeological digs have revealed that in around 48 AD, Sutton Walls was attacked by 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 ...

under the leadership of

Ostorius Scapula Publius Ostorius Scapula standing at the terrace of the Roman Baths (Bath) Publius Ostorius Scapula (died 52) was a Roman statesman and general who governed Britain from 47 until his death, and was responsible for the defeat and capture of Cara ...

and 24 of its inhabitants were slain and their bodies were thrown into the ditch. It is clear from examining the wounds of the skeletons of victims excavated that they were killed in such a conflict. Whilst some display clear arrow wound characteristics, others have clearly been decapitated. After the fort was conquered and its people either banished or put to the sword, the Romans themselves occupied it and did so till roughly the 3rd century. In this time the Romans greatly strengthened the fort's defenses likely constructing a larger and more resilient perimeter wall to establish superiority over the local land and its people. The fort is also regarded by many as being the location of the palace of Offa of Mercia. According to the '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' it was at Sutton Walls where Offa arranged

Æthelberht II of East Anglia Æthelberht (Old English: ''Æðelbrihte'', ''ÆÞelberhte''), also called Saint Ethelbert the King (died 20 May 794 at Sutton Walls, Herefordshire), was an eighth-century saint and a king of East Anglia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today in ...

to be murdered in 794. Mediaeval sources tell how he was taken captive whilst visiting his future Mercian bride Ælfthyth and was then murdered and buried. In

Richard of Cirencester Richard of Cirencester ( la, Ricardus de Cirencestria; before 1340–1400) was a cleric and minor historian of the Benedictine abbey at Westminster. He was highly famed in the 18th and 19th century as the author of '' The Description of Britain'' b ...

's account of the murder, which cannot be substantiated, Offa's evil queen

Cynethryth Cynethryth (''Cyneðryð''; died after AD 798) was a Queen of Mercia, wife of King Offa of Mercia and mother of King Ecgfrith of Mercia. Cynethryth is the only Anglo-Saxon queen consort in whose name coinage was definitely issued. Biography Ori ...

poisoned her husband's mind until he agreed to have his guest killed. Æthelberht was then bound and beheaded by a certain Grimbert and his body was unceremoniously disposed of. The medieval historian

John Brompton John Brompton or Bromton ( fl. 1436) was a supposed English chronicler. Brompton was elected abbot of Jervaulx in 1436. The authorship of the compilation printed in Roger Twysden's ''Decem Scriptores'' Col. 725-1284, Lond. 1652; with the title ' ...

's ''Chronicon'' describes how the king's detached head fell off a cart into a ditch where it was found, before it restored a blind man's sight. Posthumously Æthelberht was

canonised Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...

and became the focus of cults in East Anglia and at Hereford, where the shrine of the saintly king once existed.

External links

Sutton Walls Hillfort at PastScapeSutton Walls Hillfort Monument Detailsuttonwalls.co.uk

References

{{Iron Age hillforts in England Archaeology of the United Kingdom Hill forts in Herefordshire Former populated places in Herefordshire