Meon Hill Iron Age Fort

The wide-ranging view from Meon Hill.

Meon Hill, a prominent hill in south Warwickshire, is the location of an Iron Age hill fort, likely built on an earlier Bronze Age site. The hill is formidably steep with a wide, flat top, and the surrounding ditches and banks, positioned to make full use of the topology, are still several metres deep in places. Little modern excavation work has been done but quantities of Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British finds including pottery and worked stones have been found.

Meon Hill dominates the surrounding landscape and offers commanding views for several miles in almost every direction. Similar to other hill sites, it was designed to be seen. The nearby Ilmington Hill, which is much larger and much more sprawling, has no such eye-catching dominance and although it harbours several ancient features, there is nothing of such dramatic presence.

             The still prominent ramparts

Meon has a powerful atmosphere. A deep sense of magic infuses the hill, and it’s unsurprising that Meon Hill is prominent in local folklore.

Tradition states that the Devil lives beneath it, and rides out on dark nights with his pack of infernal hounds. This is almost certainly a Christianised version of the much older Gwyn ap Nudd, the Celtic ruler of the underworld who was associated with prominent hills and was master of the Cwn Annwfn, a pack of spectral hounds. Gwyn was later synonymised with the Devil.

This story may have arisen due to the spectacular remains of the now long-forgotten site, or perhaps it originated when the site was in occupation and Gwyn was still commonly revered. Perhaps powerful Druids commanded this site.

A more sinister story comes from the 1940s. A farm worker called Charles Walton was found dead on the hill with a pitchfork through his neck. The story was quickly linked to witchcraft. Charles was said to have been murdered because of his link to the Devil. Spectral black dogs were also associated with the crime.

Despite a lengthy police investigation, the murder was never solved, but the story adds to the powerful sense of magic many people feel here.

Eynhallow vanishing island

Eynhallow is a small island in Orkney, a short way from the larger island of Rousay. With treacherous tides and currents seething through the narrow straits, access is difficult even in calm seas.

An ancient church, later converted into houses, indicates the presence of a Christian monastic settlement. In the 1850s, the houses were evacuated and torn down. The island has been uninhabited ever since.

The name, from the Norse Eyin Helga, means ‘Holy Island’, and the island holds a special place in Orkney lore. Among other traditions, it was believed cats could not survive on the island. They would die of convulsions within a day.

Eynhallow was a home of the Finfolk, a strange and feared people who could control storms, shapeshift as seals and whales, had phenomenal sailing skills, and also routinely abducted local people.

Thanks to the Finfolk’s enchantment, Eynhallow routinely appeared and disappeared into the sea as its inhabitants wished. It was one of two ‘vanishing islands’ in Orkney, the other being Hether Blether. The latter’s enchantment has never been broken and is said to still rise from the mists occasionally.

Eynhallow’s enchantment was broken by a farmer. His wife had been abducted by a Finman and when the island rose from the sea, he rowed towards it, never taking his eyes off it else the enchantment would break and the island vanish, and in revenge he sowed salt around the island, destroying its magical power. He didn’t get his wife back but the island has remained in place ever since.

The Finfolk have been linked to shamanic people of Finland and Norway such as the Saami people, a short distance away by sea.

Orkney was home to a powerful Neolithic culture which abruptly came to an end around 2500BC, with the deliberate and ritual abandonment of the hitherto important sites. Orkney then became a backwater throughout the Bronze Age and Iron Age, with little impact on national culture.

Perhaps the Finfolk were the survivors of a powerful shamanic tradition which still survives in Scandinavia, settled on an inaccessible island and feared by the newer inhabitants for their magical powers. Over time, history turned into legend.

The Ridgeway

The Ridgeway is a prehistoric trackway, perhaps Britain’s oldest road, which ran from the River Thames to East Anglia. A great deal of it runs along the chalk ridge of the Berkshire Downs, close to the ancient sites of Uffington, Avebury and Wayland’s Smithy, before crossing Salisbury Plain. It’s linked to Grimes Graves in Norfolk, a Neolithic flint mine of national importance.

Dating is difficult and relies on nearby prehistoric sites which seem to have been built in association with it. It’s believed to date from the Neolithic period, c3000BC.

It was used as a secure and passable all-year-round trade route, especially so in the Iron Age period, and forts were built nearby to control the route. Later armies took advantage of it, as did drovers taking livestock to distant markets.

The sarsen fields of the Marlborough Downs

Today it forms part of a long-distance footpath which runs for 87 miles across the downs, where people can walk in the footsteps of five thousand years of history. It’s a beautiful route. It offers views of Avebury and other ancient sites, the sarsen fields where stone was gathered for these ancient monuments and woodlands with unusual trees and plants. With little in the way of modern buildings or roads, it’s possible to imagine it’s a literal walk in history.

Bronze Age burial mounds alongside the Ridgeway

Uffington Castle

This is an Iron Age hill fort in Oxfordshire, close to the prehistoric Uffington White Horse, and built around 600-700BC on the foundations of an earlier Bronze Age site. This is very common. The ‘Age’ may have changed but the same people and their descendants remained.

The term of ‘hill fort’ is something of a misnomer: it was applied by 18^th century antiquaries to almost any construction on a hill and there is little evidence that many were indeed forts.

View from Uffington Castle

Its prominent location on a hillside, with far-reaching views across the surrounding vales, shows its purpose. It was intended to be seen. Even today, 2500 years after it was constructed, the embankments and ditches stand proud from the hill and proclaim to every passer-by for miles: this place is ours.

The surrounding ditches, dug by hand with basic tools, are several metres deep. Look at the people in the background of the photo for a size comparison. This would need a workforce of hundreds for several months. The soil was used to construct banks on either side and the innermost bank had a stone parapet. A stunning display of might from a distance; even more so close up. It is far more work than necessary for simple defence: it’s a symbol of power and control, intended to impress.

Uffington Castle’s impressive ditches.

The ditches may be reminiscent of the older henges and enclosures – Avebury is only a few miles away – which had impressively deep ditches and would have been well known to the Iron Age people as ancient and magical sites. In the earlier cases, the surrounding water had spiritual significance; whether this was understood by the Iron Age builders or whether it was simply a display of mundane power, is unclear.

The site was occupied for several centuries and also had significance in the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. Graves and a shrine from these periods have been found. By this point, the impressive and now long-unoccupied site had probably acquired mythic or magical status, and was treated as such.