The Iron-Age Hill-Fort and Romano-British Iron-Working Settlement at Garden Hill, Sussex: Interim Report on Excavations, 1968-76

Abstract

The earthwork at Garden Hill, Hartfield, East Sussex, until then unrecognised, was identified in 1968 by Mr C. F. Tebbutt, who found early RomanoBritish material in a trial excavation. Five seasons of excavation (1972-76) by the Garden Hill Excavation Group have established the broad outline of the site's history. A scatter of worked flints indicates slight occupation in the Neolithic/Bronze Age period. Attributed to the late pre-Roman Iron Age are a round house and part of what may be another. A hill-fort, with stonerevetted and palisaded defences, was built, possibly against the Roman invasion, but soon fell into disuse and was followed by Romano-British occupation. This included a rectangular timber building, roastingand smeltingfurnaces and a forging-hearth of the first century; a rectangular building with two verandahs, using timber uprights set on padstones and in post-holes, and a four-post structure on the same alignment, both probably first-century; a timber building set on a stone platform and attached stone bath-building, of the second century; and undated post-hole and timber-slot systems (not fully excavated) representing fences and other timber structures. It is possible that Garden Hill was the base from which local iron-smelting sites were operated in the first and second centuries.