MSO8518 - Road Castle, Winsford (Monument)

(SS 86293758) Road Castle (NAT) Camp (NR). [1] Road Castle, an almost square camp, some distance below the top of the hill about quarter of a mile southeast of Exford. The defence on the east, south and west was a high bank of stones mixed with earth, with a ditch below, whilst on the north it was a steep scarp with a ditch below now much silted up. The east side has been destroyed and replaced by a modern bank and hedge, where the entrance seems to have been. [2] Road Castle Camp: univallate hill fort under 3 acres. [3] This is a small, apparently Iron Age, enclosure situated on the highest point at the end of a ridge. The rampart is strong, and it is particularly well preserved on the southern side. Resurveyed at 1:2500. [4] SS 864 376. "Road Castle (intrenchments) south of Lyncombe Wood". Scheduled. [5] Road Castle is a strongly fortified site under improved pasture. The bank is 4.5 metres high on the south, where it is best preserved. On the north side ploughing has masked the rampart, the ditch is slight and two breaches have been made in the defences. On the east most of the defences have been destroyed by a hedge bank which runs north to south across the north part of the site but then turns southeast, leaving a gap between the field and the surviving defences on the south and it is probable that this is the original entrance. Visited 30 March 1973. [6] (SS 8629 3758) Road Castle (NAT) Earthwork (NR). [7] Additional Bibliography. [8-11] The site is within the Exmoor National Park Farm Conservation Scheme. It is now fenced off separately from the surrounding land. Large scale survey is planned during the winter of 1997 as part of RCHME's East Exmoor project. [12,18,19] Scheduling revised with new national number (was Somerset 162) on 3 September 2004. [13] The earthworks of the Road Castle bank and ditch defined later prehistoric enclosure are clearly visible on aerial photographs of the 1940s onwards. The enclosing banks are up to 13 metres in diameter, defining an almost square internal area of circa 0.25 hectares. The external ditch is only clearly visible on the southern side. No internal features can be seen on the photographs available to the survey. [14-17] Enclosure is rather D shaped about 65 metres across. Internally the ramparts are 0.6 metres high. [20] An almost square enclosure measuring 57 metres between the rampart tops. It is defined by a single bank (4 metres high) and ditch (1.4 metres) deep on three sides. To the north the steep slope has been scarped with a flat area at the base 4 metres wide. There are traces of a counterscarp on the south. Parts of the north end of the east side have been incorporated into a hedgebank. At one point on the west there are signs of an external stone revetment wall. The modern entrance on the east is probably original and leads to a featureless interior which appears to have been agriculturally improved. Surveyed at 1:500 by theodolite and GPS. [21] In private ownership. [22] An almost square enclosure with a bank and an outer ditch, shown as "Road Castle Camp" on the Ordnance Survey map. Transcribed from aerial photographs. [23-25] The Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment of 2009 gave the site a survival score of 9. [28] The site was surveyed in June 2015 as part of the 2015 Exmoor Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment. It was given a survival score of 8. [29] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [30] "Road Castle Earthwork" depicted and labelled on 2021 MasterMap. [31]