Series: English Heritage Archaeology Reports

Presents the background to the recognition, investigation, and management of the archaeological resource. Extant knowledge and current threats are assessed, and ways in which the resource can be exploited and conserved are discussed in terms of the various different environmental types.

Historical and architectural development, and account of the excavations of chapter house and reredorter, with establishment of a developmental sequence from the hillside of the Battle of Hastings through the Norman monastery, the great 13th century rebuilding, the late medieval activity and the post-Dissolution cycle of decay and re-use. Finds include important pottery and tile sequences, a large collection of objects from a Dissolution period rubbish dump, and an important group of architectural fragments. Au (abr)

With summaries in French and German (xv-xviii). Cadbury Castle hillfort was excavated between 1966 and 1973 by Leslie Alcock. This report concerns the occupation of the hill during the first millennium BC and in the early centuries of the first millennium AD. Neolithic occupation was also encountered and the site is well known for its post-Roman settlement and defences (96/515). The excavations examined the sequence of the enclosing earthworks, the history of the south-western gateway and the interior occupation. The separate structural sequences of earthwork building, gateway development and interior occupation are combined to describe the site's history in three periods: Early Cadbury c. 100-300 BC, Middle Cadbury c. 300 BC-AD 40/50, and Late Cadbury c. AD40/50 - 400. Studies of the artefacts and other material excavated are integrated around common themes in terms of the human body, while activities of production and consumption are also considered. Early Cadbury began with a cluster of buildings associated with pits and occupation debris This settlement nucleus developed, with circular and rectangular structures established along the line of a road and industrial activity to the north. Lynchets, banks and fences initially demarcated the perimeter of the hill, before the first rampart was constructed. Middle Cadbury was the main occupation period, with round houses built and rebuilt and most pits dug and filled; industrial activity continued. Outer ramparts were built, with a complex sequence of gate structures at the south-west entrance. Intensity of occupation began to decline by the beginning of Late Cadbury, though the inner rampart and gateway were refurbished. The gateway was destroyed, probably by the Roman army, which then occupied the site. This gate was burnt finally in the second century and there was no indication of later Roman activity or continuity with the early medieval re-occupation of the hillfort. The first chapter begins with sections on the intellectual framework of the report,

Difficulties were experienced putting this report together because site notebooks were hard to use, no survey grid was ever established for the site, and some plans were unhelpful; most useful were the sections. The chronology for the site is now: Forts Ia/Ib, AD 90-105; II, 105-20; III, 120-c 130; IVa, 139-c 158; IVb, c 158-c 163. Each area - principia, praetorium, barracks, defences - is discussed phase by phase and some fresh views are offered. A thorough reassessment of the air photographic evidence for the immediate area is provided for this most northerly civil town of the province; complex ditches to NE of the early excavations are probably early military activity, not later town defences. Finds reports include only stratified material, ie mostly from 1947-80 work.

The cemetery excavated in the early 1950s contained some 170 graves dating from later 5th to mid-8th century. Jewellery and other finds indicate widespread contact with Frankish influences, and later on there is Christian influence. The cemetery layout and phasing are analysed.