Bronze Age enclosure on Nore Hill

Reasons for Designation

The late Bronze Age and early Iron Age (1000-600 BC) was a period of rapid technological change and agricultural intensification. These changes, probably stimulated by population growth, included major re-organisation of the landscape in many areas, with new boundaries and field systems being laid out. Settlement sites from this period provide important evidence for understanding these changes, but examples are rare and difficult to identify. A small number of enclosed settlements are known from the period in South-East England, including several hill-top sites which are thought to have been of high status, and to have acted as centres for the surrounding region. Sites of this type are known from Carshalton, Surrey, Highstead, Kent, and Marshall's Hill, Berkshire: Nore Hill is considered to belong to this group.

Despite some damage, the majority of this monument survives well for its type and date and, as a well-preserved example of a rare site type, it is considered to be of national importance. Part excavation has shown that it contains archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction and part use.

Details

The monument includes the surviving part of a Bronze Age enclosure situated on a clay, sand and gravel-capped chalk spur which projects to the west of a ridge of the North Downs.

The enclosure, which is sometimes described as being of the Ram's Hill type, originally took the form of a roughly north west-south east aligned oval area of around 3ha, bounded by ramparts. However, the north western edge of the enclosure has been destroyed by past gravel extraction, and this area is therefore not included in the scheduling. Elsewhere, the ramparts survive as a partly levelled bank approximately 5m wide and 0.5m high, surrounded by a mainly infilled, 4m wide ditch. To the north east, the main ramparts are flanked by traces of an outer bank and ditch. During the 1940s, prior to a single episode of ploughing, at least 1m of material was removed from the banks and spread over the surrounding ground. A possible entrance through the ramparts has been identified on the southern side of the monument.

The interior of the enclosure survives as an area of uneven ground, and traces of contemporary buildings, pits and associated remains will survive here in the form of below ground archaeological features. An investigation of the enclosure during the 1980s indicated that it was constructed during the Late Bronze Age (900-700 BC). Finds of artefacts dating to the Iron Age and Roman periods suggest that the monument may have been the subject of later remodelling and reuse.

The enclosure has been partly disturbed by the construction and subsequent demolition of a bungalow near its eastern edge, and by a now disused, roughly north west-south east aligned minor road, known as Barnard Road, which crosses the monument.

Excluded from the scheduling is the stock-watering trough and its footings situated in the south eastern sector of the monument, although the ground beneath it is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

31386

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Skelton, A, Surrey Archaeological Collections in Nore Hill, Chelsham: A Newly Discovered Prehistoric Enclosure, Vol. 78, (1987), 43-54

Other
Surrey County Council Planning Department, Aerial Photograph of Nore Hill, (1988)

End of official list entry

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