Denbury camp

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1003857
Date first listed:: 26-Aug-1924

User submitted image — Uploaded by Agnieszka Siewicz This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1003857
Date first listed:: 26-Aug-1924

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Devon
District:: Teignbridge (District Authority)
Parish:: Denbury and Torbryan
National Grid Reference:: SX 81651 68513

Summary

Large univallate hillfort with defended outer enclosure and two bowl barrows known collectively as Denbury Camp.

Reasons for Designation

Large univallate hillforts are defined as fortified enclosures of varying shape, located on hilltops and surrounded by a single boundary comprising earthworks of large proportions. They date to the Iron Age period most having been constructed and used between the fourth century BC and the first century AD. The size of the earthworks reflects the ability of certain social groups to mobilise the labour necessary for works on a large scale. Their function may have had as much to do with display as defence. Large univallate hillforts were centres of redistribution, both for subsistence products and items produced by craftsmen. Access to the interior is generally provided by one or two entrances, which often take the form of long passages formed by inturned ramparts and originally closed by a gate located towards the inner end of the passageway. The bowl barrows are funerary monuments typical of the Bronze Age. Denbury is a very important defended site with a long history of strategic importance, which has even made its way into local legend. The presence of barrows also used as territorial markers indicate this to have been the case from the ancient past.

History

See Details.

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 28 October 2015. This record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a large univallate hillfort with defended outer enclosure and two bowl barrows known collectively as Denbury Camp, situated on a prominent steep sided hill called Denbury Down. The monument survives as an oval defended enclosure surrounding the top of the hill and includes two circular mounds. The hillfort consists of an inner and outer enclosure. The overall length is up to 280m long internally by 135m wide. The inner enclosure lies at the eastern side of the hillfort. It measures up to 170m long by 130m wide internally. To the north, the defence is formed by a rampart bank atop the steep natural scarp. On the remaining sides this rampart bank continues and is surrounded by a partially buried ditch with counterscarp bank. Lying to the west is a second enclosure. The second enclosure is defined by a single rampart to the north and utilises the topography for additional defence. To the west it has a partially buried ditch, whilst to the south the second rampart and ditch merge with the outer defences of the inner enclosure to produce a double ditch and rampart which continues around to the eastern side. The inner enclosure has an in-turned entrance on the western side and the outer enclosure has a similar entrance to the south west. Within the inner enclosure are two bowl barrows. Both barrows survive as circular mounds with buried outer construction ditches. The western barrow measures up to 27m in diameter and 2m high. It has a pit with a granite pillar set into it approximately 0.6m high and roughly square in section which may have been the base of a flagstaff or triangulation pillar. The eastern barrow measures up to 24m in diameter and 2m high. The name Denbury, either derives from ‘Defna’s burh’ or ‘Devenberie’ and means the ‘fort of the men of Devon’. It relates to the site where the Dunnonii held against the Saxon advance from the Teign Estuary. It is also associated with legend, stating ‘If Denbury was levelled fair, England could plough with a golden share’ and ‘when Exeter was a furzey down, Denbury was a borough town’. Both these indicate its strategic importance in the past.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: DV 126
Legacy System:: RSM - OCN

Sources

Other
PastScape Monument Nos: 446227, 446232 and 891334

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.