Eggardon Hill Fort – Dorset

Eggardon Hill Fort is a place we like to go when we want to stride along in the open with a good view. It’s usually quiet and often breezy – sometimes in the winter we have to fight to stand up in the wind – a good spot for kite flying.

I always marvel at the amount of work that went in to the construction of these sloping ramparts and wonder what is was like for the Iron Age people who lived here . Did they look out over dark, dangerous woods?   Was this exposed spot as cold and wet in winter as I imagine?

Today it’s warm, even hot, in the lee of the banks.  We’re eating our lunch with a grandstand view of the West Dorset countryside, a patchwork of irregular shaped fields, and copses.  Cloud shadows are rolling across the hills as if on a movie screen; wind eddies chase each other across a wheat field .  The sound of sheep baa-ing is rising from the valley below and all around us there are chirping crickets and flashes of red as six spot burnets flit by.