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Perborough Castle – Iron-Age Hillfort

The trees on the skyline encompass the south-east sector of this hillfort, which is on Cow Down between the villages of Compton and Hampstead Norreys. It has a single defensive bank and lies on a chalk subsoil with flints. With no right of way up onto the feature, the site is difficult to access. However, see Julian Cope’s comprehensive photos of it, which include images of a flint axe-head and an example of Sarsen stone he found on the site, at Link . Gallery Link

The Compton area already had a sizeable community in the bronze-age when banks and ditches were constructed around settlements. These would have been converted in the iron-age to build this hillfort. At the excavation of 1838 the site was found to contain just a few grain storage pits and slag, and it is thought the fort was only used seasonally as a gathering place in the early iron-age Link . Subsequently some iron-age pottery and a few Romano-British shards were found there (Reading Museum). Other hillforts in ‘historic’ Berkshire are listed at: Link