Hillforts around the Axe Valley
1. Musbury Castle

Several of the hills bordering the Axe Valley are crowned by prehistoric earthworks. We call these structures hillforts, but they probably began as enclosures to protect livestock when most of the land was clothed in forests full of wild beasts. A growth in human population might well have led to tribal warfare and the building up of embankments as a means of defence, together with the clearing of trees in order to make it easy to spot enemies in the landscape.

By the late Iron Age, a century or two before the birth of Christ, the River Axe became the natural southern boundary between two extensive tribes: the Dumnonii whose land took in the area we know today as Devon, and the Durotriges who occupied Dorset and south Somerset. It was then that the hillforts truly lived up to their names, and reached their maximum development prior to the Roman conquest of Britain which began in AD 43. Since then, the old fortifications have decayed into the state in which we now see them – still impressive.

The nearest hillfort to the sea is situated on Hawkesdown Hill to the east of the Estuary, and overlooks Axmouth. This fort is in private hands, but further up the valley, on the same side of the river, is Musbury Castle, which has recently come into the care of the National Trust. It is situated on a spur of the steep hill that forms a backdrop to the village of Musbury, adjacent to the A358.

The most obvious way to reach the fort is to park near Musbury Church and follow the East Devon Way up the hill. In a long narrow steep field near the top, the East Devon Way branches off to the right; leave the Way and continue straight on and turn left at the top to reach the fort. After admiring the views, continue north along the hill and follow the footpath past the transmitter tower and into Mounthill Lane, which you descend to reach the village again. The less energetic can park at the top of Mounthill Lane and follow the footpath along the crest of the hill to the Castle. This brings you to the northern entrance of the fort, where there are two parallel embankments covered by bracken. These are well above head height and about 40 metres apart. They were considerably higher in the Iron Age, and were separated by a deep ditch which has become filled with material that has slipped from the banks.

These fortifications were evidently designed to keep out invaders from across the field to the north. The remaining steep sides of the fort provide natural defences, but entrenchments can be made out in the larch plantation that covers the western flank of this part of the hill. The southern end of the fort was protected by a system of earthworks, but these are now obscured by gorse and blackthorn. The interior of the fort is divided into fields by prominent hedgebanks, but these date from relatively recent times.

Musbury Castle would have appeared much more formidable during the Iron Age, when hillforts were encircled by timber palisades. The builders of the Axe forts would have dug deep into the soft sandy foxmould that makes up the bulk of the hilltops, and they would have made use of the surface capping of chert in building up their defences. Splinters of this rock poke out from the banks where ever these are denuded of vegetation, and you may sometimes find one of these stones with chipped edges, indicating its use as a tool, a practice that lingered on well after the discovery and use of iron.

Musbury Castle has never been excavated, and no-one knows what lies beneath their feet as they explore the fort which, together with the adjacent fields, would have seen much activity during the Iron Age. If you pick up a round pebble, it might well be a sling stone. This ammunition has turned up by the thousand in storage pits at the great southern fortress of the Durotriges, Maiden Castle near Dorchester. Sling shots are about the size and shape of pullets’ eggs, and are typically made of quartzite, an extremely hard rock that makes up a huge proportion of the pebbles along our beaches. We can imagine teams of Iron Age oxen dragging cartloads of these pebbles up Musbury Hill from the Estuary.

These speculations excite the imagination of the hillfort enthusiast. One of the finest of many splendid views is from Musbury Castle, from which you can admire the Axe Valley and Estuary, with the white cliffs of Beer Head in the distance, This panorama is still almost identical with the one illustrated in the 1875 edition of Pulman’s famous ‘Book of the Axe’, apart from the suburban sprawl of Seaton.

All the Durotrigian hillforts were overtaken by the Romans within a few years of their conquest of Maiden Castle. The armies were led by the future Roman Emperor Vespasian, who might well have stood on the same spot where you click away with your camera. His gaze, however, would have been firmly fixed across the valley as he worked out the best way of defeating the Dumnonii.

Pulman tells us that in ‘ordinary weather’ you can see no fewer than twelve other hillforts, one of which is Membury Castle, the next fort that we shall explore as we make our way up the Axe

Photos by Martin Bodman (Creative Commons License).