Barbury Castle

Barbury Castle is a hillfort in Wiltshire, about nine kilometres south of Swindon. It stands on Barbury Hill within the Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The fort has two deep defensive ditches and ramparts built of earth. It spans two civil parishes, Ogbourne St Andrew and Wroughton. The site commands a view across to the Cotswolds and the River Severn when weather allows. The hillfort dates from the late Iron Age and was used during the Roman occupation. Archaeologists have found evidence of buildings that suggest a village or military garrison stood there. In the 6th century the site became part of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex after the Battle of Beranburgh in AD 556. The writer Richard Jefferies often walked here in the 19th century. In World War II the War Ministry placed anti-aircraft guns on the site, and their bases remain as hollows. Visitors walk along the ramparts and ditches that once defended the fort. A reconstruction of an Iron Age roundhouse stood on the site until it was destroyed in 2008. The Ridgeway long-distance footpath passes close by along the edge of the Marlborough Downs. Nearby lie round barrows, Celtic field systems and old flint workings from the 18th and 19th centuries.