British Camp (Herefordshire Beacon)

British Camp crowns the Herefordshire Beacon, one of the summits of the Malvern Hills, and it is one of those places where the earthworks have become the shape of the hill itself. Ditch above ditch and bank above bank ring the summit, so that seen from the road below the hilltop rises in neat, grassy tiers; walkers have long compared it to a giant wedding cake. The summit stands at about 338 metres, and the diarist John Evelyn, writing in the 17th century, counted the prospect from here among the finest in England.

The fort is thought to have been built in the 2nd century BC and was reshaped in at least four phases. The first defences circled only the central knoll, the so-called citadel; later a ditch and outer bank were run right round the ridge, taking in three hills along some two kilometres of perimeter and enclosing roughly eighteen hectares. Numerous round hut platforms suggest people lived here rather than simply taking refuge in times of trouble. Local legend makes the camp the scene of the British chieftain Caratacus's last stand against the Romans, though the Roman historian Tacitus describes a battlefield beside a river, and the Severn lies several kilometres away.

The hill kept its strategic value long after the Iron Age. A ringwork and bailey castle, sometimes called Colwall Castle, was raised inside the old fort, probably in the decade before 1066, possibly by Earl Harold Godwinson, the future King Harold II. It was fought over during the civil war of King Stephen's reign and was finally destroyed by Henry II in 1155. Running north and south from the camp along the crest is the Shire Ditch, a boundary dug in 1287 after a quarrel between the Earl of Gloucester and the Bishop of Hereford, though parts of it may be much older.

The site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, owned and looked after by the Malvern Hills Conservators, who have built flights of steps from local pinkish granite on the main paths to stop erosion. From the ramparts the view reaches across Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, and on a clear day the whole spine of the Malverns runs away to the north.

Getting there

British Camp is about 6 km south of Great Malvern, on the A449 road between Malvern and Ledbury. The nearest major airport is Birmingham Airport (BHX), about 60 km away. The British Camp car park lies on the south side of the A449 at the foot of the hill; it is small and fills up on fine days. From there well-made paths climb to the summit.