Bincknoll Castle, Avebury

Bincknoll Castle, or Bincknoll Camp, is the site of a possible Iron Age univallate hillfort located in Wiltshire. The site lies on the end of a triangular promontory on the escarpment beneath the Ridgeway to the South. The steeply contoured sides offer excellent natural defences with only the level lands to the south offering easy access. The suggestion that the site originates in the Iron Age is currently unproven. Pottery found on site has been Roman or later in date. Geophysical fieldwork is planned in the near future, hopefully that will inform the debate about the castle's chronology. Pronounced 'Bynol' Castle, the current earthworks appear to demonstrate a Norman motte and bailey castle of considerable natural strength. It is likely that Gilbert of Breteuil, after the Norman conquest, acquired a block of manors centred on Broad Hinton and built the castle to oversee them. The 'motte', now severely mutilated by later quarrying, measures approximately 52 metres in diameter by 3 metres high, and its ditch is 2.3 metres deep. The inner enclosure has a bank and ditch 3.4 metres high dividing it from the outer enclosure, with a causeway entrance. The earthworks of the now deserted hamlet of Bincknoll, which grew up outside the castle, may be discerned in Bincknoll Dip, sloping away to the north. ()