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The post-Roman settlements
There seems little sign at Crickley of the long centuries of Roman occupation, except for occasional evidence of visits. However the period just after the Romans left, perhaps dating to around 420 AD, saw a further series of settlements on the hill.
These settlements were very different from the grandeur of the Iron Age forts. At the south end of the hill, down the slope from the entrance, a small gathering of huts (right), about 4m in diameter huddled against the ruins of the rampart. Each had a central hearth and was scooped into a hollow in the slope. A narrow entrance through the line of the rampart gave access to the woodlands beyond, and produced a notable hollow notch in the rampart line.
Further west, towards the point of the hill and on top of where the Sacred Circle had once sat, were more substantial buildings. There seems to have been a granary, some houses, one with a stone fireplace and a palisade around. It seems to have been kept rather cleaner than the houses down the slope. It feels like a place for leaders rather than followers.
Most mysteriously, a further ritual use came to light in the last few seasons of digging - The Short Mound (below). This is just beyond the Sacred Circle and is definitely late Roman or later, but strangely mirroring the Long Mound with its boundary slabs, although perhaps 1500 years later.
The post-Roman period on the site is explained in the last part of the site video:
The post-Roman buildings were apparently the last permanent settlement on the site. After this there was no doubt grazing and a shepherd’s hut was found nestled in the folds of land on the northern slope. Later, considerable quarrying initially during the medieval period and more systematically during the 19th century, left pock-marks on the hill top and produced the vertical cliff of the hill opposite Birdlip. These quarries removed some evidence of the Iron Age rampart on that side of the hill. The last quarries closed in the 1960’s, shortly before the excavations began in 1969.
Click the photo to see the Short Mound
Click the photos to see the post-Roman settlement