South Cadbury

South Cadbury in Somerset, England is a hilltop archaeological site covering an area of around 8ha, 12km northeast of Yeovil and near the historical hillfort Cadbury Castle.

Leslie Alcock's excavations in 1966–70 identified a long sequence of occupation on the site. Many of the finds are displayed in the Somerset County Museum, Taunton. The earliest settlement was represented by Neolithic pottery and flints along with a bank feature. The site was also occupied in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

A multivallate hillfort was built around 500 BC and large ramparts and elaborate timber defences were erected and re-erected at least five times over the following centuries. Excavation revealed rectangular house foundations, a blacksmith's and a possible temple indicating permanent oppidum-like occupation. There is evidence that the fort was violently taken and reoccupied by the Romans around AD 50.

Following the Roman withdrawal the site is thought to have been in use from c. 470 until some time after 580. Alcock revealed a substantial 'Great Hall' (20 metres x 10) and showed that the innermost Iron Age defences had been refortified providing a defended site double the size of any other known fort of the period. Sherds of pottery from the eastern Mediterranean were also found from this period indicating wide trade links.

Beyond reasonable doubt it was the chief caer (castle or palace) of a major ruler and home to his royal family, his teulu (band of faithful followers), servants and horses.

Between 1010 and 1020 the hill was reoccupied for use as a temporary Saxon mint, briefly standing in for that at Bruton.

Local tradition, first written down by John Leland in 1532, says this was Camelot.

The site and the Great Hall are extensive, and the writer Geoffrey Ashe asserted in an article in the journal Speculum that it was the base for the Arthur of history. His opinion has not been widely accepted by all students of the period.

Militarily the location makes sense as a place where the south-western Britons (the kingdom of Kernyw) could have defended themselves against attacks from lowland Britons. Refortification could credibly have been a response to the great Saxon raid of c. 473. If Arthur was indeed born at Tintagel as a prince of Kernyw, Cadbury would have been close to his eastern frontier.

It has been suggested that the name Cadbury derives from Cado, King of Kernyw in the time of Arthur.

See also

*Somerset Levels

Bibliography

*Leslie Alcock, Was this Camelot? Excavations at Cadbury Castle 1966-70. New York: Stein and Day, 1972. ISBN 81281505
*Leslie Alcock, Arthur's Britain Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Pelican, 1973. ISBN 0140213961