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Digital Digging - Iron Age Hillforts, Somerset
Mells Down Hillfort
H.E.R. record .kmz file Overview map
Mells Down Hillfort.
Site Name: Hillfort, Mells Down
Civil Parish: Mells
Grid Ref: ST 724 516 (ST 75 SW)

A major double ditched enclosure, surviving as a ploughed down earthwork of a univallate enclosure or hillfort. Aerial photographs indicate a larger single ditched enclosure attached to the west of the main enclosure, which is triple or quadruple ditched in places, together enclosing an area of over 12 acres. The surviving bank is up to 1m high in places and around 10m wide. The tenant farmer did not known of its existence and had driven a water pipe line through it in recent years, which was observed to expose part of a large buried ditch in section. Outlying earthworks are present along its southern and western sides; there appear to be two entrances - one to the NE being a simple break in the bank and ditch and a more complex one to the NW, with associated outworks. Two trenches across the earthworks were opened to assess the plough damage (PRN 14048). {1}

Major double-ditched enclosure with complex superimposition at centre. {3}

References:

1 Mention - Powlesland, I, 1998, "A Survey of the Prehistoric/Roman Landscape of the East Somerset Area" no.95, unpublished report in HER files 12027.
2 Aerial photographs - NMR 2119/1134, (11/6/1998) copy in Powlesland, fig 34
3 Mention - Thomas, GAP and Jones, GDB "The east Somerset Survey 1975-77" Aerial Archaeology 2 (1978), 68-70.

Data kindly supplied by the Somerset Historic Environment Record.

Record created on 02 July 2001

© Copyright Somerset County Council 2007

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