Uley Bury is not a subtle piece of engineering. Covering 32 acres — roughly 13 hectares — at 230 metres above sea level, it is one of the largest hillforts along the Cotswold escarpment. Its builders, working around 300 BC, carved a double line of ramparts into the hillsides, stretching over a mile in total length. On part of the south-west side, traces of a third rampart survive. The natural steep slopes on three sides made additional defences unnecessary — the ramparts concentrated on the vulnerable northern approach, where the main entrance still shows evidence of a turf-and-timber-lined passage with a metalled road surface.
Excavations in 1976, prompted by pipeline construction through the north-eastern rampart, revealed how the fort was built and used. Archaeologists found a crouched burial, iron currency bars (the standardised iron ingots that served as money before coinage), quern stones for grinding grain, a bronze ring-headed pin, shale armlets, a glass bead, and large quantities of pottery. A gold coin of the Dobunni — the Celtic tribe who controlled this part of the Cotswolds — has also been found here, along with a silver Roman coin.
“Excavations in 1976, prompted by pipeline construction through the north-eastern rampart, revealed how the fort was built and used.”
Over 2,000 worked flints recovered from the summit suggest the hilltop was occupied long before the Iron Age ramparts were built, probably in the Neolithic period. Large multivallate hillforts like Uley Bury are rare nationally, with only about fifty recorded in England, concentrated in Wessex and the Welsh Marches. The fort is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
