Ancient Bracknell: A Brief History

As the New Town of Bracknell approaches its second incarnation, we are offered the perfect chance to reflect on its long history. Though the town is nowadays renowned for its buildings made of brick and concrete, Bracknell’s humble beginnings were of wood and earth.

Indeed, Bracknell as we see it is less than 70 years old – Bracknell New Town was designated was given in 1949 – but the ground beneath it has more than three millennia of history.

There is evidence to suggest that Bracknell was first inhabited as early as 1200BC. In Easthampstead there exists a round barrow probably used as a burial mound in the Bronze Age. The site, which is today known as Bill Hill, can be visited near Downshire Way, and one can still make out the shape of a small man-made hill amongst the thicket of trees there. We can’t be certain if Bracknell was populated at the time of Bill Hill’s creation, but we at least know that there existed settlers near to Bracknell who considered the area a suitable burial ground for the dead.

From the middle Iron Age, evidence of a small yet significant ancient community in Bracknell starts to emerge, and in nowhere is this more clear than the famous Caesar’s Camp. Located in Swinley Forest near modern-day Birch Hill, Caesar’s Camp was an oak-leaf shaped hill fort that was probably once the centre of activity for ancient Bracknellians.

It is hard to pin point exactly when Caesar’s Camp was established, though historians agree it is must have been some time between 500 and 300BC. The original settlers were likely to have been invading tribes from Gaul and Belgium – large numbers of these continental people were starting to settle throughout South-East England at this time.

This means that the name we have for Caesar’s Camp today is an anachronism – the settlement had very little to do with Julius, or any other Caesar, or even the Romans at all for that matter, predating the Julio-Claudian dynasty by several centuries. The name “Caesar’s Camp” or “Caesar’s Fort” was a Victorian invention. Prior to this it was known as Windmill Hill. But there is no evidence to tell us what the ancient settlers might have called their town; the Iron Age Celts are infamous for having kept no written records.

A section of the surviving dump rampart at Caesar’s Camp. This section is more than 20 feet high.

By 300BC, Caesar’s Camp was in full operation as a market town. It boasted a mile-long dump rampart for defence, peaked with a strong outer wall composed of wood and stone. It was located atop a great hill offering sweeping views over the rest of the Bracknell Forest area. Certainly it was a spectacular piece of ancient engineering, and at around 17 acres, it was equally as impressive in size. Its construction would have required a significant amount of manpower.

But there is limited evidence to suggest that Caesar’s Camp was ever used as a settlement. The site itself would have been completely inappropriate for farming, being sludgy in the winter and covered with sandstone and gravel the rest of the year. Instead it was likely used as a meeting point for farmers and tradesmen in the areas around Bracknell Forest – as a market, an assembly place, for cultural activities such as worship and burials and, most importantly, as a fortress in case of attack.

Caesar’s Camp stood alone as the only hill fort in East Berkshire. In fact it was more than 15 miles away from its closest neighbour, meaning inter-community trade would have been difficult. Self-sufficiency was vital to the Iron Age Bracknellians, and Caesar’s Camp achieved this by developing its own micro-economy. Iron Age Bracknell was home to a great number and a wide range of satellite settlements. Each of these would have been responsible for producing one or two products, which would have then been traded within the central market at Caesar’s Camp – the central stock exchange, if you will. Today we know of six settlements that surrounded Caesar’s Camp.

The first and closest was a community at Jennet’s Park, Bracknell. This settlement appears to have been adept at tanning hides and skins, and there is evidence that it later moved into manufacturing ceramics. Not far away, at the present-day site of Fairclough Farm, Warfield, a small farming community was active during the same era. It had access to fantastic farmland, and so would have been responsible for harvesting arable crops. The last community inside Bracknell was a comparatively large settlement at Park Farm, Binfield. The people of this village appear to have earned a small fortune from the sale of pottery, and were lately known for processing charcoal, laundering textiles and farming wheat.

Outside of Bracknell, yet not too far away from Caesar’s Camp, two metalworking communities grew up at Riseley Farm in Swallowfield and Whitehall Farm in Arborfield. And at the present-day site of South Farm in Lightwater a much later community was renowned for providing pottery and iron instruments. These six are the settlements we are aware of today, though it is incredibly likely that many more settlements existed in the flat plains surrounding Bracknell Forest. Unfortunately, many of these were likely in places that archaeologists are no longer able to excavate.

For hundreds of years, Bracknell’s economy appears to have been self-sufficient. There is no evidence that Bracknell was ever taken over, nor is it evident that it was ruled by any lords. However, in the 1st Century AD, Bracknell – along with the rest of Berkshire – fell under the rule of Cunobelin, king of the Catuvellauni tribe. A single silver coin of his head, minted in Colchester, made its way to Caesar’s Camp around this time. It is difficult to tell how life in Bracknell would have changed, if at all, under the Catuvellauni. But this subtle change would mark the beginning of Bracknell’s, and indeed Britain’s, decline into Roman hands.

As fate would have it, it was Cunobelin’s exiled son who fled to Rome and convinced the Emperor Caligula to begin an invasion of Britain. Though Caligula’s mission was unfruitful (to say the least), it paved the way for a renewed conquest by Emperor Claudius in AD43. Claudius gave control of the Roman military to Aulus Plautius, who made quick work of conquering South-East Britain. The Catuvellauni were run out and Caesar’s Camp (along with the rest of Bracknell’s tribes) fell into Roman hands.

We know that Caesar’s Camp was not maintained by the Romans. The Legions built and rebuilt many forts in Britain during their tenure, but these were all strictly rectangular in shape. The fact that Caesar’s Camp remains to this day in its famous oak leaf shape suggests that the site was abandoned soon after the invasion. Whether this was anything to do with Caesar’s Camp untenable location, its poor quality soil or its dependency outside its own walls is something we will never know. But the Romans seem to have a later use for the Camp. A road from its south entrance was built to connect it to the Devil’s Highway, the Roman Road connecting Pontes (Staines) with Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester), suggesting it was used for storage or as a resting beacon.

As for the original inhabitants of Bracknell, their valuable and rare skills would have made them irresistible to the slave traders who had followed the Roman army to Britain. And though there is limited evidence of later occupation at Caesar’s Camp, the handful of Bracknell’s remaining inhabitants would have more than likely joined the rest of Berkshire in moving south toward Wickham Bushes. This site sat directly upon the Devil’s Highway, making it a much better location for trading.

The North entrance to Caesar’s Camp, showing a cutaway of the dump rampart.

So Caesar’s Camp, along with the rest of Iron Age Bracknell, faded into the pages of history. In would be almost another millenium – AD942 to be exact – for Bracknell (or “Braccan Heal”) to once more appear in the chronicles. In fact it is probable that Bracknell’s new settlers, coming centuries after the inhabitants of Caesar’s Camp, had no idea that the town they were rebuilding had once exhibited one of the most astounding cultures and economies to exist in Iron Age England.

Thanks for reading.

This post originally appeared on my personal blog on January 3rd 2014. This is a copy-edited version intended for re-distribution.