Abstract
A FURTHER addition to the sites of industrial activity in Sussex in later prehistoric and Roman times, for which archaeologists are indebted to the activity in investigation of Mr. S. E. Winbolt, is made by the discovery of an Early Iron Age camp on the Weald in Piper's Copse, one and a quarter miles east of North Chapel, West Sussex. The situation is remote and the discovery was due to the fact that a fox had dug its earth in a dry place where a small iron smelting hearth had been constructed in the inner slope of a bank. This was found on investigation to be the north-west end of an enclosure formed by a bold bank and deepish ditch, in good condition, except on the south-east, where an attempt had been made at levelling. The dimensions of the camp, Mr. Winbolt states in a communication to The Times of August 5, are a little more than 300 ft. by 270 ft. outside measurement, the inner area comprising about 1J acres. The height of the rampart, where beat preserved, is 14 ft. from the bottom of the ditch. Two points of special interest arise in connexion with this discovery. The camp lies on the Wealden level (c. 120 ft.) and although Early Iron Age camps are known on heights fringing the Weald, such as at Holmbury and Hascomb, Saxonbury and Dry Hill, this is the first to be recorded at the Wealden level. The second point of interest is its date and purpose. These are fixed by red burnt material, charcoal, nodules of local iron ore and five fragments of La Tene iii pottery, as well as by many big lumps of iron ore lying near by. The site lies about two miles from the eastern slope of Blackdown near a stream flowing into the Arun and is in the middle of a country rich in iron ore of a moderate quality, where iron furnaces and forges of late medieval date abound, as, for example, at Mitchell Park, Shillin-glee, Ebernoe and Roundwyck. Mr. Winbolt points to this as a further instance of the previous existence of Iron Age and Roman iron workings where medieval and Tudor workers are found.
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Iron Age Site on the Sussex Weald. Nature 136, 214 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136214a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136214a0