A Visit to Burrough Hill Iron Age Hillfort, Leicestershire

Last weekend my girlfriend took us to Burrough Hill for a picnic. Having lived nearby for most of my formative years I'd come here quite often both on family and school trips. The latter was quite memorable for an incident which involved a teacher wishing to educate us about the defensive nature of the hillfort by forming us into attackers and defenders. Naturally being a group of rowdy school kids it erupted into a chaotic mass brawl on the earthen ramparts as we envisaged ourselves as bloodthirsty warriors intent on blood and glory.

The recent picnic was a far more relaxed and gentle affair I'll hasten to add. But other than the joyful delight of sitting in the summer sun and marvelling at the view, I also took the opportunity to take a few photos. As with anything like this my mind also starts to gravitate towards wargaming and things like "how would this look as a piece of modelling terrain?" etc etc.

Rather than repeat the history of the site in my rather inadequate way, I'll post the link here to the University of Leicester who have done some sterling work on the fort over the years. It's still astounding to me that excavations have shown occupation of the area going back to the Neolithic period:

Leicester University Burrough Hill Project