1. Sudbrook Camp is a defended enclosure situated on the shore of the Bristol Channel at the southern end of the village of Sudbrook. It is defined by up to four lines of ditched ramparts that form a roughly triangular area, about 200m from east-north-east to west-south-west by 92m, resting on a low eroding cliff line on the south. Excavations between 1934 and 1936 (Nash Williams 1939), produced late Iron Age, Romano-British and medieval pottery, although the interpretation of their contexts has been questioned (Knight 1971, 18; Sell 2001).
Sources:
Nash Williams 1939 (AC 94), 42-79;
Knight 1971 (Mon. Ant. 3), 17-19;
Sell 2001 (Studia Celtica 35), 109-141.
RCAHMW, 24 October 2003.
2. Edited description from Driver, T., 2023. 289-93
'At the far south-east point of Wales, on a headland jutting into the Severn estuary, is one of the more massive coastal promontory forts in the south of the country. Today Sudbrook promontory fort sits in the shadow of the Second Severn Crossing on the west side and the village of Sudbrook on the east, alongside the water pumping station for the Severn railway tunnel. It was first noted in Camden’s Britannia of 1637 as; ‘…an old Fortification… compassed with a triple Ditch and three Rampiers as high as an ordinary house, cast in forme of a bowe, the string whereof is the sea-cliffe’.
In prehistory this was a critical crossing point on the rapidly narrowing Severn estuary. After a long, exposed and featureless line of low-lying saltmarsh between the rivers Usk and Wye, now the Gwent Levels, the coast climbs slightly and juts out in a promontory providing strategic views to the east and west. This first narrowing point was a key ferry crossing in Roman times between Black Rock and Aust and was also chosen for the location of this large Iron Age settlement.
Sudbrook promontory fort sits sat in the vanguard of Silurian territory. It looked boldly across the Severn to the lands of the Dubonni people. An early Roman marching camp lies just 2.8kms north of Sudbrook at Killcrow Hill, showing that the promontory fort lay in the heart of contested territory during the thirty-year conflict between Silurians and Romans in the 1st century AD.
[The defences] enclose a D-shaped space defined by a 300m sweep of ramparts, enclosing 3.06 hectares. The north-eastern rampart between the fort and Sudbrook village is huge, standing 5.7m tall. On the west side a triple set of ramparts survive whereas on the east only two now stand. Excavations in the 1930s [end note 25] showed that a middle rampart stood here but was later levelled. Despite housing having destroyed sections of the northern defences, enough of a plan survives beyond the centrally placed north gate to show that the approach into the fort was made more complex with overlapping ramparts to slow, confuse and impress all those approaching.
Along the south the fort was defended by sea cliffs, soft and eroding in the east but bolstered by rock outcrops at the western end. It is highly likely that a greater part of the interior has been lost to erosion over the last two millennia including gateways between the rampart terminals and the cliff edge. An opportunity was taken to shore up some of the eroded interior during construction of the adjacent Severn Tunnel in 1873-86 when spoil from the tunnel was dumped in the southeastern corner of the fort, also serving to protect the ruins of the medieval Holy Trinity church from being lost.
Sudbrook promontory fort was excavated between 1934-36 by Victor Erle (or V. E.) Nash-Williams. As was the method of the time, his trenches were on a military scale with great sections cut through the northwest and northeast defences by teams of workmen. These sections revealed careful internal structuring of the ramparts, with stabilising layers of gravel and sand. The sections also show that the deep ditches had originally been V-shaped and far deeper than can be seen today.
Nash-Williams’ excavations through the defences and across two house sites in the southwestern interior revealed thick occupation deposits and quantities of prehistoric and Roman finds including pottery, brooches, evidence for glass and metal manufacture and Roman coins. His findings suggested Late Iron Age occupation from 100 BC with potential reoccupation, and perhaps a takeover of the fort, soon after the Roman conquest of Britain in the AD 50s or 60s. Finds of quern stones for grinding grain and bones of ox, pig and sheep or goat suggest a thriving agricultural and pastoral economy supporting the fort in Iron Age times. Sudbrook was sporadically occupied in the mid-late Roman period and again in medieval times. In the Second World War this old fort was again used for coastal defence with the installation of a small concrete pillbox on the inner western rampart.
Nash-Williams painted a dramatic scenario for Sudbrook following the Roman conquest when he suggested its occupation came to an ‘abrupt end’, with the population possibly being transferred to nearby Venta Silurum Roman town at Caerwent. In recent years his trenching technique and lack of detailed trench plans have been called into question, along with the accuracy of his excavation findings. It is certain that Sudbrook would repay fresh investigation with modern techniques, potentially telling a new story of prehistoric coastal trade and the impact of the Roman campaigns in south Wales.'
References:
Driver, T., 2023. The Hillforts of Iron Age Wales: Logaston Press
Nash Williams, V.E. 1939. An Early Iron Age Coastal Camp at Sudbrook, Near the Severn Tunnel, Monmouthshire. Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol. XCIV. 42-79
Whittle, E. 1992. A Guide to Ancient and Historic Wales: Glamorgan and Gwent. Cadw. London: HMSO.