Cadbury Castle

South Cadbury, Somerset

Cadbury Castle is an ancient hill fort, near South Cadbury, in Somerset. It has for centuries at least linked to King Arthur as the location of Camelot, and has an old road sign showing this. This local tradition, first written down by John Leland in 1532, stating that Cadbury Castle was King Arthur's Camelot.

Today when you climb it, you see the impressive multi bank earth works, that even today would be a challenge to create. It is difficult without visiting to envisage the size of this place and once you do just how it could have been constructed at the time it was. On the top is an area large enough for a good sized village or small town. Besides the earth works you can see the remains of an outer stone wall around the entire top, and remains of some stone structures.

The views from the top are fantastic, you can see Glastonbury Tor, 12 miles away, and the villages all lay out as if you were in an aircraft looking down. You enter via a track from the road, and pass through an original entrance. Its easy to see why people got the idea that this was the remains of Camelot. However as you will come to discover this is only the back door. The main entrance is at the opposite corner. There are a number of claims to be the location of Camelot, and no one knows where it was or if it existed. See places associated with King Arthur, and more on him. There is also a second page linked to this that looks at the records and other information in more detail.

What's in a name

Lot = piece of land, so Camelot is a piece of land by the River Cam. The River Cam runs past Cadbury Castle. Bury means fortification. Often associated with towns that had town walls, so Camelot once fortified with walls could become Cambury.

However some say the name 'Cadbury' has a  SaxoBrythonic hybrid meaning 'Battle-Fort', and that the prefix derives from Cado, King of Dumnonia in the time of Arthur or thereabouts. Militarily the location makes sense as a place where the south-western Brythons (perhaps from the kingdom of Dumnonia) could have defended themselves against attacks from lowland Brythons. Refortification could credibly have been a response to the great Saxon raid of 473AD. If Arthur was indeed conceived at Tintagel, as tradition asserts, as a prince of Dumnonia, Cadbury would have been close to his eastern frontier. After his defeat it could have been renamed after Cado, that was known at that time, perhaps he inherited Camelot.

There is also

• Villages of Queen Camel and West Camel near to Cadbury Castle. (Local pronunciation was camal with the last A as in father.)
• Villages of South Cadbury, grid ref SS910049 (near Cadbury Castle) and North Cadbury grid ref ST635273 is Somerset.
• Cadbury Castle, Devon Iron age hill fort overlooking the Exe valley Bickleigh - Grid Reference SS913052
• Cadbury Camp, another Iron Age Hill Fort, but smaller, 50 miles north near Tickenham, its well preserved and managed by the National Trust. Grid reference ST 454724.
• Cadbury Hill also known as Cadbury-Congresbury now, so as to avoid confusion. Iron Age Hill Fort in north Somerset near the village of Cadbury at grid reference ST442649.

Excavations and other information we have on Cadbury Castle.

They tell us that the hill fort was built around 500BC, and was strengthened and extended at least 5 times. It has large ramparts and had huge and elaborate timber defences.

Excavations have turned up material from the Iron Age, and both Roman and Saxon items. Some of these items are in the county museum at Taunton. The earliest material is from the Neolithic age. Remains were found of rectangular house foundations, a blacksmiths and what is thought to have been a temple. They found evidence that it was taken after a major battle by the Romans about 50AD and then occupied by them. The defended area at the top is 18 acres.

Julius Caesar described the larger Celtic Iron Age settlements he encountered in Gaul as oppida and the term is now used to describe the large pre-Roman towns that existed all across Western and Central Europe. Many oppida grew from hill forts although by no means did all of them have significant defensive functions. Oppida surrounded by earthworks are known as enclosed oppida. The main features of the oppida are the architectural construction of the walls and gates, the spacious layout and commanding view of the surrounding area.. Caesar pointed out that each tribe of Gaul would have several oppida but that they were not all of equal importance, perhaps implying some form of hierarchy. In conquered lands, the Romans used the infrastructure of the oppida to administer the empire and many became full Roman towns. This often involved a change of location from the hilltop to lowlands nearby.

Following the withdrawal of the Roman administration, the site is thought to have been in use from around 470AD until some time after 580AD. Remains of a substantial 'Great Hall' (20 x 10 metres) have been found, and evidence that the innermost Iron Age defences had been refortified providing a defended site double the size of any other known fort of the period. (Geoffrey of Monmouth set the year of Arthur's fall as 542).

On the central part the foundations of a timber hall were discovered 63ft by 34ft, divided in two, with one part larger than the others. A small building found close by may have been the kitchen. Only the hall had been able to be dated to the time of Arthur. At the south-west entry were the remains of a gatehouse of the same period. A cobbled road ten feet wide climbed into the enclosure. It passed through double doors into a nearly square wooden tower, and out through similar doors the other side, all buried again after the excavations.  Around the hill, on top of the earth banks was a dry stone bank or wall 16 feet thick. Gaps where ancient timber had rotted marked the places where massive posts had upheld a breastwork on the outside, protecting men who stood on the wall. Beams had run across, binding the structure together and supporting a platform, and perhaps, at intervals, wooden watch towers. You can still see remains of the stonework. Although some other hill forts/castles were fortified a little in this period,  no others anything like what has been found at Cadbury Castle. 

There are quite a lot of hill forts or castles, many are impressive, but few match Cadbury Castle and the added intrigue or stories about it being King Arthur's Camelot has got to make it worth visiting.

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