Ice Houses and Iron Age Forts

In the A-Z of Ashdown we have reached I for the Iron Age hill fort and, most appropriately for the weather, Ice Houses. I have blogged about the Ashdown House ice house before - here - and I hope it doesn’t make anyone feel too chilly!

The Iron Age hill fort of Alfred’s Castle lies to the north west of Ashdown House. It is small as hill forts go with a single rampart bank and ditch but it has a large enclosure attached that in aerial photographs shows as crop marks. It is possible that a second ditch was re-used as part of the medieval park pale in 1204. The current bank was originally revetted with sarsen walls but when Ashdown House was built in 1662 these were robbed out to lay the foundations for the house. The antiquarian John Aubrey who passed Ashdown at the time recorded this act of historical vandalism!

Two excavations by Oxford University recorded Bronze Age origins for the site, dating from the 6^th century BC. This is an interesting tie-in with the line of four Bronze Age barrows on the horizon, thought to mark a tribal boundary and with the Bronze Age artefacts found on Weathercock Hill. Evidence of an Iron Age roundhouse was found and also a Romano-British building dating from the 2^nd to the 4^th century AD.  The Roman building was a “villa farmhouse” of fairly high status with six rooms, several of which had an “opus signium” floor of stone and tile. The building was substantially built of stone and had painted walls but no hypocaust or mosaic floors. It is one in a series of early villas in the area.

In 1855 William 2^nd Earl of Craven donated a copper Romano-British brooch and two bracelets found there to the British Museum.

Alfred’s Castle was originally known as Ashbury Camp and was given the name Alfred’s Castle in the 18^th century when antiquarians wanted to tie it in with King Alfred’s Battle of Ashdown of AD 871. I’ve blogged about the battle in other posts (links here and here) and Ashdown has at least as good a claim to be the site as any, with Alfred’s muster at the hill fort. The Second Earl of Craven also donated a number of other finds from the estate that show Anglo Saxon origins including a knife, shears, spear heads, and a sword. There was also a Viking axe…

In modern times the author James Long used the archaeological dig at Alfred’s Castle as inspiration for his book Silence and Shadows.

There is currently no interpretation board at Alfred’s Castle as we are waiting for the final report from the Oxford University dig so that we can incorporate the details. However it is a site that is well worth seeing as part of the historical landscape.

Ashdown House is getting ready for the 2013 Season!

Spring is around the corner, the snowdrops and daffodils are coming through and in less than 2 months, Ashdown House will be open again. We can't wait to show you around!

The 2013 National Trust Handbook does not feature any opening times for Ashdown so we're giving all the dates, times and other information here on the blog in order for people to plan their visits. I'll be repeating this throughout the season. We would like to encourage as many visitors as possible to come to Ashdown because as one of the little gems of the National Trust, this is a house well worth visiting!

Opening times for Ashdown remain unchanged from 2012. Ashdown House and the parterre gardens are open on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, 2pm - 5pm.

The first day of opening is Wednesday April 3rd and the season runs to Wednesday 30th October. The woodland is open all year round every day except for Fridays.

Our rather special guided tours take place at 2.15pm, 3.15pm and 4.15pm. We view the elegant entrance hall, the magnificent 17th century staircase and take in the view from the frankly splendid roof platform. Along the way we take a look at Ashdown's renowned 17th century portrait collection and give visitors some background on the fascinating characters who have been a part of Ashdown's 350 year old history, including the dashing cavalier William, 1st Earl of Craven, Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen, King Charles II and even Jane Austen. From the royal court to the servants' hall, Ashdown has a tale to tell!

Throughout the year there will be talks, walks and exhibitions in the Information Centre. Our talented lace makers, wood turners and re-enactors will be around to give people a flavour of 17th century life. For those who prefer to visit at their own pace there are self-guided walks around the gardens and also a children's tour. (Don't miss our gorgeous Balleroy ponies!)

Also not to be missed is the atmospheric Iron Age hillfort of Alfred's Castle, said to be the rallying point for Alfred the Great's army before the Battle of Ashdown against the Vikings in AD871.

The ancient track the Ridgeway is nearby, as is the magnificent hillfort at White Horse Hill and Wayland's Smithy Long Barrow. The picturesque village of Ashbury with its 15th century manor house and pub, The Rose and Crown, is just down the road and there is fabulous walking and cycling all around on Weathercock Hill and the Berkshire Downs.

I hope we have whetted your appetite for a visit!

For more information please see the Ashdown House National Trust page at:
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ashdown-house/

You can follow us on Twitter as well on @AshdownHouseNT

There is also an information line on: 01494 755569.

For all bookings and any other enquiries please do contact the regional office on 01793 710252 or email asdownhouse@nationaltrust.org.uk or direct to this blog at ncornick@madasafish.com

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Commemorating the Battle of Ashdown

The Battle of Ashdown between the West Saxon army and the Danes, took place on 8th January 871 AD. It happened a couple of months before Alfred became King of Wessex. I've blogged about the site of the battle previously and the work local historian Peter Knott did to locate it at Ashbury.  You can read the post here. Today on the anniversary of the battle I'd like to quote from Asser's description of what happened:

"In 871 the Viking army came to Reading. On the third day two of their earls rode out for plunder. Aethelwulf, ealdorman of Berkshire, confronted them at Englefield. The Christians won the victory.

Four days after these things happened, King Aethelred and Alfred assembled an army and went to Reading. They reached the gate of the stronghold. The Vikings burst out. Both sides fought fiercely but the Christians eventually turned their backs and the Vikings won the victory. Aethelwulf fell there. The Vikings, after a short rest, started to advance westwards from Reading.

The Christians, four days later, advanced against the Viking army at Ashdown. The Vikings, splitting into two divisions, organised shield walls. The Christians too split up into two divisions. But Alfred and his men reached the battlefield sooner (than King Ethelred who) was still hearing Mass.

Since the king was lingering still longer in prayer, and the Vikings had reached the battlefield more quickly, Alfred could not oppose the enemy battle-lines any longer without either retreating or attacking, and he moved his army against the enemy.

But the Vikings had taken the higher position, and the Christians were deploying from a lower position. A rather small and solitary thorn tree grew there, around which the opposing armies clashed violently. The Vikings took to ignominious flight and many thousands were slain over the whole broad expanse of Ashdown."

We will never know for certain the exact location of the Battle of Ashdown unless some incontrovertible proof comes to light, which seems unlikely. Here on the Ashdown House blog we are celebrating Alfred's victory and feel Ashbury has as strong an historical claim to be the location as any other site. It's also a wonderful opportunity to post up some of our gorgeous landscape photographs of the surrounding countryside!

The A-Z of Ashdown

Today we are starting a new feature on the blog, an A-Z of Ashdown covering various aspects historical, geographical, mythical and others that defy categorisation! I did consider doing a reverse alphabet and starting with Z but I think there will probably be a few letters we'll be scraping around to find topics for and Z is probably one of them. So I'll start with A, which has a number of potential Ashdown-related topics.

First there is Ashdown - the physical location, the "down covered in ash trees" which features in the Anglo-Saxon records as the generic name for the entire line of the Downs. This was the site of the Battle of Ashdown and local tradition places the battle on the land between Alfred's Castle and the Bronze Age Barrows to the south (more of them when we get to B!)

Then there is Ashdown House itself and Alfred's Castle, the Iron Age settlement. There is also the historic village of Ashbury, of which Ashdown became the "big house" in 1662. Ashbury has its own 15th century manor house, an ancient church, parts of which go back to the Norman period, and lots of other interesting historical features. It definitely deserves a blog piece.

There is also the airfield. During the Second World War there was an airfield to the north of the Mile Drive, by Red Barn Cottages. It ran east to west and there is still a gap in the trees where it cut through that is visible from the path that runs down from the Ridgeway to Red Barn. Parts of the old metal
interlocking landing strip can apparently be seen in the garden of Old Forge in Ashbury. British, American and Canadian troops were stationed at Ashdown (more on them when we reach W!) and they flew Spitfires and Mustangs out of the airfield (this is attested to by the paintings of Spitfires and Mustangs that were found on the walls of the drawing room after the troops had left. There was also a lifesize painting of Rita Hayworth!) There was a canteen at Red Barn and some of the crockery is still being dug up out of the fields whenever they are ploughed.

Local people remember two plane crashes at Ashdown. The first was a Mustang that caught fire as it was coming in to land. The second was when a plane that was landing at the airfield collided with a motorcyclist on the B4000. There are various memories of the Second World War recorded as part of the Ashbury Living History Project. We don't have much written information on the role of the Ashdown airfield so if anyone knows anything of Ashdown's wartime history, please get in touch!

The Lost Battle

Today for your pleasure a historical mystery... It's not unusual for the site of an ancient battle to be disputed, unknown for certain in the present day, and the location of the Battle of Ashdown, which took place in January 871AD, has long given rise to discussion. From Compton, near Streatley on the River Thames, to Uffington Castle and various other points east, the Battle of Ashdown has been mooted to have taken place in several places that fit the somwhat vague geographical description given is Asser's life of King Alfred: that of a place where the Danes held the high ground and there was a lone thorn tree. Sadly this doesn't really narrow the field a great deal.

As a brief background: In 870, the Danes embarked on an invasion of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex. They sailed up the Thames and came ashore at Maidenhead in Berkshire. Moving inland, they captured Reading and began fortifying the site as their base. The Danish commanders, Kings Bagsecg and Halfdan Ragnarsson, were supported by five Earls. They met considerable resistance from Aethelwulf the Earl of Berkshire, who was backed up by King Ethelred of Wessex and his younger brother, Alfred. After initial successes Ethelred planned an assault on the Danes' camp at Reading but was unable to break through the defences and was driven back to the Berkshire Downs. The Danes, seeing an opportunity now to crush the Saxons and take Wessex, rode out from Reading with the bulk of their army to take on the Saxons on the Berkshire Downs. Where did this encounter occur?

Local legend tells of Alfred riding to Blowingstone Hill near Kingston Lisle to use the ancient sarsen blowing stone to call all men to battle. He then mustered his forces at "Alfred's Castle" the Iron Age hill fort west of Ashdown House, joined with his brother's troops who had been encamped at Hardwell Camp, and rode to do battle with the Danes at nearby Uffington Castle. All well and good, but other sources place the site of the battle elsewhere on the Berkshire Downs, at Compton, near East Ilsley, and in other places to the east, along the Ridgeway, closer to the Thames and to Reading. No one knows for certain... One could say that the clue is in the name but during the Saxon period the word "Ashdown" referred to the entire expanse of the Berkshire Downs.

Recently I read a fascinating and cogently argued article by the late local historian Peter Knott that drew on field names and other local evidence to place the Battle of Ashdown to the south west of Ashbury village, along the escarpment that borders the Ridgeway. Up until the mid-eighteenth century this escarpment was too steep to cultivate for crops; even now the steepest inclines are covered in trees. Ancient records identify this area of land as called "The Wayte," a name that can be traced back to usage in the 13th century. Margaret Gelling, in "The Place Names of Berkshire" gives the meaning of the wayte as a look out place, but an alternative is given in the Oxford English Dictionary: an ambush. This meaning is still in use today in the form of "lying in wait." Could this be a record in a place name, a piece of land where the Saxon lookouts patrolled and Alfred's army lay in wait for the Danes as they marched out of Reading?

One of the most intriguing aspects of the case is the reference in a charter of 947AD to a place near Ashbury called Rammesburi or The Ravens' Fort. This raven is the familiar of Woden, the Teutonic god of war and death. It also has sinister connections in literature as a bird that haunts battlefields. Today the location of the Ravens' Fort is lost, but we know from the charter that it lay on the boundary of Ashbury lands. Could the Ravens' Fort have been named in memory of the Battle of Ashdown? As a final twist, ravens are birds that habitually nest in the same places that they have inhabited for centuries. Today there are ravens on Weathercock Hill, to the east of Ashdown...

"Alfred moved his army against the enemy... The opposing armies clashed violently... The Vikings took ignominious flight, and many thousands were slain over the whole broad expanse of Ashdown..." Asser.