Mount Caburn & Ranscombe Camp

DTM- (Digital Terrain Model, i.e. No buildings or foliage) Just to the east of Lewes lies Lewes Downs. Within these downs lies the multivallate contour hillfort, Mount Caburn and the unfinished univallate partial contour hillfort, Ranscombe Camp. (Visible in oblique render above Mount Caburn as a line of ramparts. Mount Caburn was first excavated in 1877. (Early Iron Age finds within 40 pits) Next excavated in 1925 where British & Romano coins, iron age pottery & other implements were recovered from the 99 remaining pits. The 1937 excavation found occupation related finds from Iron Age to the medieval period. First occupied circa 300BC. Defences strengthened circa 43AD (due to Roman invasion). Mid 12 century use as a ‘Adulterine Castle’ (without royal approval during the ‘Civil war of Anarchy’ between 1139 & 1154) Army training in WW2 (slit trench) Last excavated 1996-1999 yielding prehistoric finds. Ranscombe Camp first excavated in 1878, then 1881, 1959-64 and 1997. Finds include Iron Age pottery and Romano British pottery. The overhead render may show the entire area as within the boundary of the unfinished hillfort, as the surrounding ramparts have been degraded apart from the obvious ones to the southeast. Iron Age tribal association (conjecture based on location): Regni (Scheduled Monument)