Reply To: Atlas of Hillforts

[bigdave 3704xp 1]

Top stuff! So many avenues to follow with a resource like this – and for Saga players wanting to do a campaign, quite a number of hill forts would be reoccupied under King Alfred. Some would be refortified, others would feature prominently in some of the battles against the Danes. On a smaller scale, being able to utilise your knowledge of the locations of different hill forts as a raiding/counter raiding force could be invaluable. The ability to camp overnight behind the safety of a ditch could increase depth of your raids into enemy territory as a Welsh or Viking raider, or for some poor Saxon fyrdsman provide a rallying point to gather local forces when you try to catch them (and their loot) as they try and make it back home again…

Their utility lasted right the way up to the Napoleonic era, volunteer infantry units on the south coast of England made use of them during the invasion scares as encampments, the strategic locations of some of them not diminishing 2000 years on. An invading French column having to march up the slope towards the ditches and ramparts of an old Hill Fort with musket fire raining down on them? Or worse, trying to bypass them on a forced march to the military canal and then London? Ready-made guerrilla nests in the hills of Southern England.

Great find man, going to spend ages pawing my way through this now…