The road to Bulbarrow

 

I haven't walked this route in an age, Okeford Hill out to Bulbarrow Hill and Rawlsbury Hillfort. It's a lovely walk. The route runs along the edge of an escarpment of the Dorset Downs with striking views out over Blackmore Vale and into the surrounding counties, ahead you can just make out the ancient ramparts of Rawlsbury in the distance, and glimpse the Dorsetshire gap beyond. Bulbarrow Hill at 274m is the second highest hill in the county, it's height has always drawn people to it, with evidence of human activity way back to our Mesolithic hunter gathering forebears, 9600 - 4000BC. 

Rawlsbury Camp Hillfort

Rawlsbury Camp is a small strategically important Iron Age Hillfort sited on an imposing spur of Bulbarrow Hill in North west Dorset, commanding spectacular views. Rawlsbury is a sub rounded/oval multivallate hillfort (although, it's believed to have developed from an earlier univallate hillfort) of double ramparts and ditches with additional elaborate rampart and ditch defences around its entrance, the area contained is about 1.6 hectares. I don't believe it's ever been excavated, well, I can find no reference anyway.  Set in Hardy country, when you sit on its grassy ramparts, you really do feel far from the madding crowd. It's one of those places where you can escape the noise of modernity, and soak in the silence. Well, not silence really, there's still the sounds of nature, but you know what I mean.  Worth a visit.