43
Excavations at Ambresbury Banks, 1956
The following report has been received from
Mrs. M. AYLWIN COTTON, F.S.A.
THIS scheduled earthwork consists of a single bank, which now stands some
four to seven feet high, a wide silted-up ditch and an incomplete
counterscarp bank. The main rampart, which now has six breaks in its
circumference, encloses an ovate area of about eleven to twelve acres. It has a
sub-rectangular form as it turns the northern and eastern corners fairly sharply.
The site is a wooded plateau on the 300-feet contour line and sloping away
to the south-east. Nowadays it carries ancient beech trees and has been
disturbed by quarrying in the north-eastern quarter. The underlying rock is
mainly Claygate Beds with, in places, a capping of boulder clay with striated
pebbles.
Ambresbury Banks was first mentioned by Morant in his History and
Antiquities of Essex in 1768. It has been twice excavated by the Essex Field
Club; first under the guidance of General Pitt-Rivers in 1881, and later under
that of Mr. Hazzledine Warren in 1933. On both occasions the monument
was attributed to the pre-Roman Early Iron Age, but insufficient material was
found on which to suggest too precise a date or purpose.
In the summer of 1956 the site was again tackled, this time by the staff
and students of a Summer Training School organised by the University of
London Extra-Mural Department at Wansfell Adult Education College. Only
a fortnight's work was done but, by selective excavation, some progress was
made towards solving the problems of this site.
In summary, the results achieved were these. The findings of the earlier
excavators were confirmed and slightly supplemented. The rampart is of one
period and is of a simple glacis build without apparently any timber or stone
revetments. The wide and deep U-shaped ditch provided most of the material
for both the rampart and the counterscarp bank. All but one of the main
gaps in the rampart were tested and it was proved that the only original
entrance is the simple gap on the western side through which the parish
boundary passes. More especially was it shown that the south-western gap,
often postulated as an original inturned entrance, was of late origin. It is
probable that it, and the corresponding one at the north-west, were cut during
the fifteenth century, and they may perhaps be associated with the ride
through the Forest marked on maps as "The Ditches" and with the sand
quarrying.
Some slight excavation inside the camp produced no evidence of occupation,
and indeed, finds were as scarce as they had been in the earlier experiences
of the Essex Field Club. A tanged worked flint arrowhead of Bronze Age
type was found low down in the silt of the ditch. This represents a chance
find which may have been lying on the site in Early Iron Age times. A
number of pottery sherds were, however, found in and under the main ram-
part and in the silt of the ditch, in positions similar to those found by Mr.
Hazzledine Warren and of similar type. These showed conclusively that the
monument can be attributed to the Early Iron Age A period. In south-west
Essex this period extends perhaps from as early as the fifth century B.C. until
either the arrival of the Belgae circa 75 B.C. or perhaps even as late as
their movement from Hertfordshire into most of Essex in the early first
century A.D.