EWX487 - Bulbury Camp, Lytchett Minster; excavation 1884

Edward Cunnington recorded that the bank on the north was 10 feet above the ditch and 'the breadth of the vallum was 41 ft. …' (Archaeologia XLVIII (1884), 115-20). He drew opposed entrances with unusually long inturns (80 ft.) on the east and west sides, and plain gaps on the north and south. It is now impossible to say which of these was original. The finds recorded by Cunnington suggest that the hill-fort was used in the 1st century AD, and included a fragment of decorated mirror, horse harness and chariot mounts, part of an iron sword hilt, a tankard handle, glass beads, and two iron sledge-hammers (one unfinished or a 'waster'), a long narrow iron axe, iron fragments and an iron anchor 4½ ft. long together with an iron chain (Arch. Camb. C (1948), 40; P.P.S. XVI (1950), 27; XVIII (1952), 94; C. Fox, Pattern and Purpose (1958), 73). Also recorded by Cunnington but not preserved were iron nails 6 ins. to 7 ins. Long, 'thick as a thumb', 2 or 3 'rounded flat pieces of iron, which may be timber clamps', 'half of a good quern of very hard sandstone', ' a piece of fine bronze chain', 'a piece of bronze with iron ribs for strengthening it', '3 small bronze rings', and 'fragments of black well-burnt pottery'.