Monument record 0001700000 - PULPIT HILL CAMP

Dimensions - Length 100m, Width 90m.
Plan Form - D shaped.
On edge of escarpment of Chilterns. E side double rampart & ditch, original entrance with ?Modern widening. Platform behind double rampart (B6,B10).
IA 'C' bivallate ridge end fort (B8).
Early ref as 'Cymbeline's Mount' (CASS 00020). Traditionally ascribed to Cunobelin (B1).
Trial trench excavated by Boughley Burgess in 1855 on behalf of the Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society. 'A cutting was made through about half the centre of the square camp, but nothing peculiar was found except pieces of very coarse brown and black pottery, a boar's tusk, and quantities of oyster shells, and some bones, apparently those of animals' (B2).
Scheduled (B10).
Detailed topographical survey carried out by English Heritage on behalf of the National Trust (B13-14).



(SP 83180503) Camp (NR) (B15).
Great Kimble: "On the brow of a high hill, south of the church, at the NW corner of a wood called Pulpit Wood, commanding the track of the Icknild-Way, is a square camp, with deep ditches on the east and south. The area is covered with wood and bushes.... but the lines are still perfect, though the avenues of approach are no longer to be seen. The formation of this military work is popularly ascribed to Cunobeline". (Obs: The name "Cymbeline's Castle" is normally attributed by others, including the OS to SP 80 NW 5) (B1).
A promontory fort with two single-bank sides, roughly at right-angles, on the west, where the ground falls away sharply, and a curving double rampart to the east, apparently broken by a central entrance. Flint flakes and chippings reported from the interior. Plan (B5).
Visited 19 5 56. The best approach is up the track from Gt Kimble, past the rifle range, which is still in use (Univ of London OTC). Description (3) correct, but the entrance, of simple straight-through type, is, as shown on OS 6", slightly S of the central point of the double defences. There are many boundary banks in Bulpit Wood and extensive quarries NE of the fort (B16).
2nd - 1st century BC (B4 and B17).
An IA 'C' bivallate ridge-end fort, centred at SP 83180503; is D-shaped in plan measuring 100.0m NE-SW internally by 90.0m tranversely. The straight NW side immediately overlooks steep natural slopes falling away into the head of a coombe and consists of a steeply scarped slope, 3.0m in height, with a narrow terrace at its foot (? Silted up ditch) and faint traces of a bank along the top. The SW side similarly overlooks, but at a short distance away, further very steep natural slopes, and comprises double lynchet-like slopes separated by a terrace or silted up ditch, again with traces of a bank at the top. The E and N sides face the top of the ridge and comprise double ramparts with outer ditches. There is a berm, 2.0 to 4.0m in width along the inner side of the outer rampart. The banks average 1.3 to 1.6m in height from the ditches which are 0.4 to 1.0m deep. In the E side is a simple "straight-through" entrance. The width of 14.0m suggests widening in later or modern times, though there is no obvious ground evidence of this. Published 1:2500 survey revised (B18).
Pulpit Hill hillfort was surveyed in 2000 by English Heritage as part of a wider programme of survey of Ridgeway hillforts. For full details of the 1:1000 scale survey and a copy of the plan, see the archive report (B19).

This record includes National Record of the Historic Environment Information provided by Historic England on 4 June 2025 licensed under the Open Government Licence.