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Somerset Historic Environment Record

43792

Site Name:	Hillfort, King's Castle, Wiveliscombe
SCHEDULED MONUMENT:	Hillfort on Castle Hill 650m south east of Ford House [No:32170]
Civil Parish:	Wiveliscombe
Comprises:	PRN 31685 Late Roman coin hoard find, King's Castle, Wiveliscombe
Grid Ref:	ST 096 282 (ST 02 NE)
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Image:
	HER 43792 - DAP RM08 (jpeg version). Photo by Devon County Council (Frances Griffith) (07 June 1990)

Public access:

The public accessibility of this site is unknown or has not been checked. Please ask locally and do not visit without permission. [Information last updated on 21 May 2003]

Details:

Hillfort set on isolated steep-sided and roughly flat-topped hill, much mutilated and defaced by quarrying on a large scale. {1}

The defences consist of inner bank, with a scarp, ditch, second bank and scarp. The finds from the site are: Neolithic flints including arrowheads, borers, scrapers, cores, blades and a knife found in 1950 and 1952. Human bones and a spindle whorl found in 1914. {2}

The interior ramparts survive up to 2.5m in places, 6m high externally and 14m wide. The external rampart on the SE, S and SW sides is 9m wide, 1.5m high internally and 7.5m externally with a small ditch along the perimeter. The ramparts are rather damaged on the SW by soil removal. A cowshed in this area is excluded from the scheduled area. There was no change in 1983. {3}

The interior is arable-cultivated pasture, shown as coniferous woodland on 1920s OS 25" map. The defences are heavily quarried and wooded and are totally destroyed at the N end, where an unknown portion of the site has been quarried away. They are barely detectable on the E side. A substantial bank survives on W side, surmounted by a later hedge bank. Best preserved at S end, where a staggered entrance between the two lines of ramparts, their E terminals slightly inturned, survive. The outer bank on the W bifurcates 20m W of entrance. {4}

Collinson report that Roman coins of the late C2 were found near the centre of the site in 1711. {5}

Three human femur heads were found lying on the surface of the rampart slopes and ditch in 1914. They were very weathered. {9}

The surviving areas of the rampart are under stable woodland, the interior is used for pasture and is not suffering any erosion. {12}

Scheduling revised with new national number (was Somerset 441) on 7 July 1999. {13}

Before the interior was ploughed after the First World War it was reported that 'foundations' of buildings could be seen in the interior. {14}

References:

Record created in July 1984

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