Caesar's Camp
Caesar’s Camp is an archaeological site in the coniferous forest to the south of Bracknell Town. Despite the name it is in fact the site of an iron age hillfort built between 2500-2700 years ago. It is possible to visit the site, and the closest available parking is at The Look Out Discovery Centre, Nine Mile Ride, where a range of other facilities are available. Caesar’s Camp is then just a short walk away through the forest.
The Site
A remarkable piece of engineering, constructed entirely by hand using basic tools, the hillfort covers an area of about 7 hectares and is surrounded by a ditch. This ditch is almost a mile long, and was dug entirely by hand, with the waste material collected to form a bank on the inside.
There have been no major excavations of the hillfort, but English Heritage did a geophysical survey and small scale sample excavations in 1995 which sadly revealed very little. The obvious use of a hillfort is as a defensive location, but it is possible that it could have been a market place or a religious or political centre. While the actual arrangement of buildings on the site is unknown, work on other sites has given us a good idea of what they would have looked like. Iron Age houses consist of a circle of timber posts spaced 1-2m apart which supported rafters for the roof. The walls were made of wattle covered in daub, and perhaps lime-washed. The roof was probably thatched. Square or rectangular structures built with four posts would have been used as animal pens, granaries and sheds.
Recent Management
The remnants of the hillfort, the banks and ditches, have suffered from erosion by natural and human actions. Until recently, the interior of the hillfort was covered by a conifer plantation and the bank and ditch by deciduous trees. These prevented grass from growing on the site, which acts as a better protective barrier to erosion than other vegetation. Recent management work has sought to alleviate these problems through the thinning of trees and sowing of grass. The interior of the fort has also been cleared of trees, so that its full extent can now be seen, and sown with heathland plants, which used to cover the site according to drawings made during military exercises in the late eighteenth century.
The work to protect Caesar’s Camp will benefit not simply the archaeology of the site, but also the ecology and environment. The heathland being restored on the interior of the fort will benefit rare heathland birds, such as Woodlarks and Nightjars, which are part of the Borough Council’s Biodiversity Action Plan.
The Caesar’s camp project is managed by The Crown Estate and Bracknell Forest Council. The project has been funded by English Heritage and the Countryside Commission. Please note that the hillfort is legally protected, and it is an offence to use metal detectors upon it or damage it in any way.
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