Sutton Walls Hillfort

north of Hereford    (26/2/25)

Parked quite near though had to walk
over village bridge that has been
damaged and awaiting mending.
Walked over the fields to neglected important ancient hillfort.
Bright day, though much wet mud
to plough through,
though we avoided the path
directed through a sodden field
which had much standing water.
Undergrowth fairly dense on top,
but good views on the upward
and downward approaches,
across westwards

Sutton Walls Hillfort:
500 years of settlement,
war cemetery (tweny-four skeletons, many decapitated)
discovered, and then skeletons lost
(will they be found again for analysis of their wounds,
and attempt at dating, and assigning their likely history?)
Romans occupied and strengthened the fort;
later a palace of King Offa?
Thought to be site of murder of East Anglia’s King Ethelbert,
murdered as he visited his bride-to-be, King Offa's daughter.
Quarried in the 1940s,
landfill site more recently
deterioration, unmanaged for long,
tree growth damaging the underground archaelolgy
and burrowing animlas.
So now, badger and bat populations monitored
as part of the investigations to conserve.