Everything about Cadbury Castle Somerset totally explained
» For other Cadbury Castles, Camps and Hills, see Cadbury.
Cadbury Castle is an
Iron Age hill fort in the
civil parish of
South Cadbury in the
English county of
Somerset. It is famously associated with
King Arthur.
Location
Cadbury Castle is located five
miles north west of
Yeovil at . It stands on the summit of Cadbury Hill, a
limestone hill situated on the southern edge of the
Somerset Levels, with flat lowland to the north. The summit is 500
ft (150
metres) above sea-level. The hill is surrounded by four terraced earthwork banks and ditches and a stand of trees.
Excavations
Excavation at and around the site has discovered
Iron Age,
Roman and
Saxon artefacts. The excavation was led by
archaeologist Leslie Alcock from
1966-
1970. He identified a long sequence of occupation on the site and many of the finds are displayed in the
Somerset County Museum in
Taunton.
Prehistoric occupation
The earliest settlement was represented by
Neolithic pottery and flints along with a bank feature. The site was also occupied in the
Bronze Age and early
Iron Age.
The
castle is a multileveled
hill fort built around 500
bc. Large ramparts and elaborate timber defenses were constructed and refortified at least five times over the following centuries. Excavation revealed rectangular house foundations, a blacksmith, and a possible
temple indicating permanent
oppidum-like occupation. There is evidence that the fort was violently taken and reoccupied by the Romans around AD
50.
Historic occupation
Following the
withdrawal of the Roman administration, the site is thought to have been in use from c.
470 until some time after
580. Alcock revealed a substantial 'Great Hall' (20 x 10 metres) and showed that the innermost Iron Age defenses had been refortified, providing a defended site double the size of any other known fort of the period. Shards of pottery from the eastern
Mediterranean were also found from this period, indicating wide trade links. His opinion hasn't been widely accepted by all students of the period.
Militarily the location makes sense as a place where the south-western
Brythons (perhaps from the kingdom of
Dumnonia) could have defended themselves against attacks from lowland Brythons. Refortification could credibly have been a response to the great Saxon raid of c.
473. If Arthur was indeed conceived at
Tintagel, as tradition asserts, as a prince of Dumnonia, Cadbury would have been close to his eastern frontier. Although the name 'Cadbury' is generally considered to be a
Saxo-
Brythonic hybrid meaning 'Battle-Fort', David Nash Ford suggests that the prefix derives from Cado, King of Dumnonia in the time of Arthur.
Further Information
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