Shoulsbury castle facts for kids
Shoulsbury Castle is an ancient Iron Age hill fort located near Challacombe in Devon, England. A hill fort is a type of fortress built on a hill, usually during the Iron Age. This castle is found near the top of Shoulsbarrow Common, about 472 metres (1,549 ft) above sea level. It is a large area surrounded by ditches and earth walls called ramparts.
Shoulsbury Castle is special because it's shaped like a rectangle, which is unusual for an Iron Age fort. This has made some people wonder if it might have been built by the Romans instead. It is the biggest and most famous hill fort on Exmoor. Over hundreds of years, it has been called by many different names, like Solsbury and Shoulsbarrow. People lived in this area from the Iron Age all the way into the early Saxon period. These people were known as the Dumnonii. In the 1700s, some even thought it was built by Druids for religious ceremonies or sports events.
What Does It Look Like?
The fort has two main ramparts, which are like big earth walls. However, on the south side, the natural shape of the land meant only one rampart was needed. Its rectangular shape is similar to smaller Roman forts found nearby. This is why some experts think Shoulsbury might have Roman connections, even though very few Roman sites are found on Exmoor.
The main entrances to the fort were likely from the west and the southeast. The inner part of the fort covers about four acres, and the outer part covers six acres. In the northeast corner, there's a round mound. People once thought this was a Bronze Age burial mound and even dug into it before 1906, but they didn't find anything. Inside the fort, there are also some bumps and lumps that might have been where houses once stood. The people living here would have gotten their water from the nearby River Bray.
Life on Exmoor
Shoulsbury Castle's location on Exmoor would have been a very wild and tough place to live during the Iron Age. It was often windy and exposed. A writer named Daniel Defoe, who lived from 1661 to 1731, described Exmoor as "filthy, barren Ground." This shows how challenging the environment was.
In 1839, Henry Wollcombe wrote about the hill fort. He said that the entire area inside the fort was a "morass," which means a soft, wet, boggy piece of ground. He mentioned that even on a dry day, you had to be very careful where you stepped because the whole hill was marshy. He also thought that the double ramparts weren't ditches, but rather flat areas where people could gather.
Images for kids
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3D view of the digital terrain model
