Ross-on-Wye
Chase Hill
The Hill Fort
Chase Hill has some of the earliest evidence of human activity in the Ross area in the form of Flint tools from the Mesolithic period. By the Iron Age the hill had become an important hill fort. The hill rises around 660 feet and has a good view of the surrounding lowlands and river. The main period of occupation seems to have been from the 5th or 4th century BC when various earthwork defences covered 19 acres and housed maybe 1,400 people. The site was then occupied right through the Iron Age and possibly only abandoned after the Roman invasion and Ariconium, the local Roman settlement, had been founded in around 50AD.
[Page updated: Feb 15 2011 13:31:58]