Alfred's Castle
Alfred's Castle is a small hill-fort from the Iron Age , behind Ashdown Park in the village of Ashbury in the English county of Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire ) is located. The castle is 2–3 km south of the Ridgeway and is a Scheduled Monument .
Immediately next to it is a large enclosure, which can be seen as a growth feature . Excavations have shown that this was created at the same time as the small enclosure, the construction of which began in the 6th century BC. The hill fort was built within a series of linear trenches from the late Bronze Age and there is much evidence of settlement in it. At the end of the 1st century AD, a Romano-British farm was built in the abandoned prehistoric enclosure.
King Alfred won a great victory against the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown in 871 . Since the castle is immediately west of Ashdown House, Victorian historians linked Alfred's Castle to the movements of the king's troops prior to the battle. The exact place where Alfred's battle took place is not yet clearly determined; hence there is ongoing discussion about it. The most likely locations are the villages of Compton and Aldworth in Berkshire .
In 1998–2000, archaeologists from the University of Oxford carried out excavations at Alfred's Castle and the subsequent analysis of the results was published in 2014. Interim reports are published on a website of the university.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alfred's Castle (225540). In: PastScape. English Heritage , accessed August 3, 2017 .
- ^ Alfred's Castle. School of Archeology. University of Oxford, accessed August 3, 2017 .
literature
- M. Aylwin Cotton: Alfred's Castle in The Berkshire Archaeological Journal . Issue 58 (1960). P. 43ff
- Chris Gosden, Garry Lock: Histories in the making, Excavations at Alfred's Castle 1998-2000 . Oxbow Books, 2014. ISBN 9781905905324 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 32 '16.9 " N , 1 ° 36' 7.2" W.