Honington Camp

Honington Camp is located near Honington village between Willoughby Heath and Barkston Heath in Lincolnshire, England.

The camp sits below and to the northeast of the highest point of Barkston Heath and consists of a small roughly rectangular set of banks and ditches enclosing an area of about half a hectare. Even though it is called an ironage hillfort it is more likely to be a defended settlement as is more common in the east of England than the upland regions. The earthworks consist of a flat plateau surrounded by an inner bank, a ditch, a larger central bank, another ditch and then a lower outer bank or counterscarp. There is an entrance through the eastern defences and the ditches are still a couple of metres deep in places. The ditches have filled up and the banks eroded. A wooden stockade would have been built on the bank.

It would probably have been the homestead of a small family group, perhaps farmers who were cultivating around the site. Not enough is known about the site to be sure. It is unlikely to be an animal enclosure due to the triple bank and ditch arrangement. Finds from the site include some Roman coins - Ermine Street runs about a mile to the east, it is likely that Ermine Street follows the course of an earlier trackway. In 1691 an urn, filled with Roman coins, was unearthed at the site. Since then, many other artifacts have been uncovered, including spears, bridle-bits and swords.

Mesolithic worked flints have been found hereabouts and the Bronze Age is represented by many flints and broken cinerary urns. Best of all is the fabulous gold necklace, known as the Sudbrook Torc, the only such item from the late Bronze-Age found in Britain. There was a significant Iron-Age settlement here and some coins were found. The Roman coin mints of Sleaford were only eight miles away.