Surrey Archaeological Collections
Surrey Archaeological Society, 2003. (updated 2023) https://doi.org/10.5284/1000221. How to cite using this DOI
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Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 379
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1000221
- How to cite using this DOI
SURREY ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS
Felday, Holmbury St Mary: an earthwork enclosure of the 1st century AD
D FIELD
A promontory hillfort, or enclosure, consisting of a bank and ditch cutting off a north facing Greensand spur, and with the ditch and slight bank extending around the north and west sides of the spur, is loosely dated to the mid-1st century AD on the basis of pottery typology and magnetic dating of ditch silt. Defences are slight, possibly unfinished, but are similar to a number of other Greensand hillforts and in particular those of a late Iron Age date. Its size, position and lack of surface indication of internal use pose problems of interpretation of function, for while a livestock compound or other economic function is clearly possible, the ditch and bank are designed to exclude admission rather than merely keep animals in, and so for the moment the question must remain open.
