Chalbury Hillfort is an Iron Age hillfort roughly south-east of the village of Bincombe, in Dorset, England. It is a scheduled monument.
Description
The site is in a strategic position, above sea level; Weymouth Bay is about to the south. The hill is an outcrop of the Dorset Ridgeway.Prehistory of Sutton Poyntz Sutton Poyntz. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
There is a single rampart in roughly a D-shape and an external ditch, enclosing about . The rampart is about above the interior for most of its length, and about above the external ditch. There is a gap entrance in the south-east.Richard Wainwright. A Guide to the Prehistoric Remains in Britain. Volume 1: South and East. Constable, 1979. Page 110.'Hill-Forts', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 2, South east (London, 1970) pp483-501 British History Online. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
There are medieval strip lynchets surrounding the fort, and running into the rampart on the north side.
There are many circular depressions within the enclosure, and at least 20 are probably contemporary storage pits. Around the perimeter are at least 30 platforms, which are thought to be huts. Also within the enclosure are two Bronze Age bowl barrows, in diameter and about high.
There is an interior quarry ditch behind the rampart north of the entrance, from which material was used to construct the fort.
The site was excavated by Miss M. Whitley in 1939. The rampart was found to have limestone revetments. Apart from a few finds of the late Bronze Age and the Romano-British period, most of the finds showed two phases of occupation in the early Iron Age.
See also Hillforts in Britain
References