Whitehouse Camp

Heritage listing

Details The monument includes the earthwork and buried remains of a ringwork and bailey situated on the crest of the Cefn Ridge, between the River Monnow and Escley Brook. The ringwork remains include an earthen bank, enclosing a roughly oval area orientated NNW-SSE, with a crescentic bailey wrapped around it to the south, south west, and south east, and contiguous with it to the north. The ringwork bank averages c.4m wide and 1.2m high, however at the south east end it rises and widens, to form a sub-rectangular mound measuring c.8m north-south by 16m east-west, and c.2m high. The overall dimensions of the fortification are therefore c.38m x c.27m. The interior of the bailey is level whereas the surrounding ground slopes gently away in all directions, thus the bank is higher on the outside. Material for its construction will have been obtained from a surrounding ditch, which has since become infilled and is now longer visible as a surface feature. The mounded ringwork is flat topped and a fallen tree has revealed a section of a horizontal masonry revetment which will have supported the sides of the mound. There may originally have been a similar revetment around the circuit of the bailey. To the north there is a gap in the ringwork bank which may have been the original entrance. There are now no surface remains of the gateway, which was probably of timber construction, and evidence for this will survive within the terminals of the bank. The bailey has been formed by terracing the natural slope to enclose an area measuring c.58m north-south and c.55m east-west within an artificial scarp. The scarp is now visible as a slight earthwork, c.0.3m high on the south and west sides, and up to 1m to the north east and east where the natural slope is somewhat steeper. The bailey

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.