Knook Castle

Knook Castle is the site of an Iron Age univallate hillfort on Knook Down, near the village of Knook in Wiltshire, England, but largely within the civil parish of Upton Lovell. It has also been interpreted as a defensive cattle enclosure associated with nearby Romano-British settlements. It is roughly rectangular in plan with a single entrance on the south/south-east side, but with a later break in the wall on the western side. The site is a scheduled monument. John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–1872) described Knook Castle as follows: Knook Castle is an ancient single ditched entrenchment, of about 2 acres; is supposed to have been originally a British village, and afterwards a Roman summer camp; and has yielded Roman coins. Traces of another ancient British village are to the N. "The site of these villages", says Sir R. Hoare, "is decidedly marked by great cavities and a black soil; and the attentive eye may easily trace out the lines of houses and the streets, or rather the hollow ways, conducting to them. Numerous tumuli and barrows are in the neighbourhood." The site and surrounding downs are easily accessible by public footpath, with the Imber Range perimeter path running east to west immediately to the north of the site. Further to the north lies Imber Range, one of the military firing ranges of Salisbury Plain.