ARTHUR AND BARBURY CASTLE: EVIDENCE AND THE LITTLE VOICE IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD

                      Barbury Castle

When I wrote this piece just a week or so ago -

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-two-candidates-for-southern-arthur.html?m=1

- I was leaning towards Ceredig son of Cunedda as the best candidate for Arthur. However, I could only do this by viewing the Welsh PA GUR's identification of Uther as Illtud, and the whole Uther and Illtud business with Samuel/Sawyl as spurious tradition. 

Despite the fact that a little voice in the back of my head kept insisting that I was making a mistake. That I was willfully ignoring the only evidence we had for the identity of Arthur's father for the sake of reading the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN's pen kawell as a reference to Ceawlin/Cunedda. And that I was doing this solely because I liked the latter theory better.

Only the other day I had cause to revisit my dilemma. I had been ignorant of the fact the Barbury Castle, the 'Bear's fort', appears to show Dark Age activity, if not reuse:

From

https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/7292/BarburyCastle_anarchaeologicalsurveybytheRoyalCommissionontheHistoricalMonumentsofEngland:

"Early medieval There is considerable evidence for early medieval activity in and around Barbury Castle in the form of artefacts and, possibly, human remains. At the hillfort itself a scramasax of 6th- or 7th-century date was found before 1934 with fragments of several others, smaller single-edged knives and a spearhead; in 1939-45 human skeletons buried in the rampart were found by American troops and these have been assigned an early medieval date (Meaney 1964, 265) though on what evidence is unclear. Colonel Burne recorded that: `To the consternation of the archaeologists ... [US Army] soldiers brought up bulldozers to Barbury Castle and began deliberately to demolish the vallum. When human bones were found in the excavating bucket, they deemed it time to report an unusual occurrence. Mr Alexander Keiller went out at once to the site and was in time to photograph a section of the vallum which showed that the parapet had at some time been heightened by a few feet' (1950, 399). Burne argued that this heightening of the rampart was done by the Britons prior to the Battle of Beranburgh, so the dating of the skeletons to the same period may be due to his influence. Some (but apparently not all) of Keiller's photographs survive (Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury, No 20000584), showing that it was on the north side of the west entrance that the skeletons were found; these surviving photographs do not show evidence for the heightening of the rampart, however. It should also be noted that a fragment of human skull has been found more recently on the outer rampart to the south of the east entrance (Lynne Simpson pers comm). Barbury Castle, the lower ground to the north or the ridge to the south-east, is the traditional site of the Battle of Beranburgh in 556, a possibly indecisive encounter between the Saxons under Ceawlin and Cynric, and the Britons. The battle was

discussed by Maskelyne (1886, 191-3) who believed it to have been a great Saxon victory, but later writers have emphasised that victory was not achieved until Dyrham in 577 (e.g. Entwistle 1994, 77). There seems to be general agreement, however, that the battle was fought near, not at, the hillfort. The OS have placed it at SU 147 768, 500m north of the fort, while Burne argues that it took place 750m south-east of the fort on Smeath's Ridge (1950, 402). The Battle of Ellandun, decisive victory of Egbert of Wessex over Beornwulf of Mercia in 825, is also believed to have taken place at Wroughton (Smurthwaite 1984, 36-7)."

Now, the word "indecisive" there pretty much says it all. For I once discussed the 36 year Wiltshire gap in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/03/arthur-and-beranburhbarbury-repost-of.html?m=1

Southern England was the most heavily Romanized part of the island. There is no problem with the Artorius name having been preserved there into the sub-Roman. The name was not rare and we need not restrict its origin to the northern 2nd century L. Artorius Castus.

But, there is a real problem with claiming it as a second name for Cerdic of Wessex. There is no problem suggesting it belonged to a war prince at Barbury whose father hailed from Durocornovium at the Liddington Badon. And that the Arthur name, taken by the Britons as a bear name, caused the English to name the fort for the Bear who ruled there.

It may well be that I shall have to write yet another book. One that places the great Arthur in Wiltshire.