Sodbury Camp hill fort

Sodbury Camp is an Iron Age hill fort on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment above Old Sodbury, about 2 miles east of Chipping Sodbury. Two wide-spaced ramparts enclose about 4.5 hectares of the plateau. Edward IV camped on Sodbury Hill in May 1471, two days before he won the battle of Tewkesbury. It is a scheduled monument, and the Cotswold Way runs past it.

History

Sodbury Camp was built in the Iron Age, in the centuries before the Roman conquest, and the Royal Commission's survey, published in 1976, recorded it as unexcavated. The village school's history guide counts it among only about fifty hill forts in England with a double rampart, out of more than 1,200 in the country.

Romans and later

Finds from the interior show later use. Part of a quern for grinding grain was found inside in 1958, and eight Roman coins, from the reigns of Gallienus to Constantius II in the third and fourth centuries, have been found in and near the fort. The school's guide says the Romans and Saxons both used it as a camp.

Edward IV, May 1471

The fort's best-recorded moment came in the Wars of the Roses. On 2 May 1471 Edward IV was marching to cut off Margaret of Anjou's Lancastrian army, which he expected to fight near Sodbury. According to the Arrivall, the account written for Edward's side, the Lancastrian scouts reached Sodbury town and set upon five or six of the king's men who had ridden too far ahead, and Edward lodged with the rest of his army on Sodbury Hill, his vanguard beyond it in a valley towards the town. Margaret's army had turned away north in the night towards Berkeley and Gloucester. Edward followed, and on 4 May he defeated her at Tewkesbury.

What to look for

The Royal Commission's survey of 1976 measured the defences:

• The inner rampart, about 11m wide and rising about 2m above the interior on the north, east and south sides, lower along the edge of the scarp
• The inner ditch, about 9m wide and 2m deep on the plateau
• The outer rampart, beyond a narrow berm, up to 17m wide and 3.4m high, irregular and apparently never finished
• The entrance in the middle of the east side, where the staggered rampart ends hold much fire-reddened limestone and the causeway has sunk a little

A second causeway lies about 50m to the north. The interior has long been ploughed, so it is the banks and the view that you come for: from the scarp edge the land falls away west towards the Severn, and the school's guide says that on a clear day you can see Wales.

Visiting

Sodbury Camp is on farmland crossed by public footpaths and by the Cotswold Way, free and open at all times; keep to the paths and close gates behind you. The banks and ditches are steep, and the paths up from the village climb through a wood and can be muddy. As a scheduled monument the fort is protected by law, so leave the earthworks as you find them.

Getting there

By car, park free on Chapel Lane in Old Sodbury (near BS37 6LZ), considerately. Stagecoach 620 calls at Old Sodbury about five times each way, linking it with Bath and Tetbury, Monday to Saturday, and Coachstyle 41 runs between Yate and Malmesbury four times each way, Monday to Saturday.

On foot, two of our walks come here:

• Old Sodbury, the hill fort and the church, a 2.5-mile (4km) circuit with gates and no stiles, climbs past St John the Baptist's Church and crosses both ramparts on the way in and out
• The Cotswold Way passes the fort on its section from Hawkesbury Upton to Tormarton, between Horton and Old Sodbury

Nearby

The church of St John the Baptist, Old Sodbury is on the hill about a kilometre south-west. Horton Camp, a smaller single-rampart fort, is about 2km north along the edge. In the town, St John the Baptist's Church, Chipping Sodbury is the parish church. For a meal or a bed, the Bell at Old Sodbury is a pub with rooms, and the Squire is on Broad Street in Chipping Sodbury. Our guide to Chipping Sodbury covers the town.