Druids' Den Traditional Cache
Hanoosh: As this cache has not been found for ages and it is clear the CO is no longer caching having not logged in for over a year, I am archiving it.
Regards
Brenda
Hanoosh - Volunteer UK Reviewer www.geocaching.com
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A small cache on the path leading to Denbury's Iron Age hill fort. The cache is a small plastic box containing a logbook. It's quite a climb to get to the top but the views and the nearby hill fort are worth it!
Denbury Village is situated in South Devon, England, between Totnes and Newton Abbot, about ten miles from Torquay. The village has spectacular views of Dartmoor and is overlooked by Denbury Down, site of an ancient Celtic Hillfort.
With two close-set ramparts and a deep ditch on the east and south sides, Denbury's hill fort was built around 300-100BC. This wooded hillfort crowns the 150m high end of Denbury Down, a little ridge of Devonian limestone and of volcanic spilite to the west of Denbury village. It is conspicuous on the skyline from many directions in the surrounding undulating countryside.
The Bronze Age barrows inside were there earlier, probably built 1,000 years or more before the fort.
The hillfort was strongly defended by two close-set ramparts and a deep ditch on the east and south sides. The lines of these diverge to form an outer enclosure on the west side, a later addition perhaps designed as a livestock enclosure. Its low bank is unconsolidated and probably was unfinished. On the north side the defences have been ploughed down leaving a single scarp, and are overlain in part by hedgebanks.
The outer enclosure was entered from the southern slopes through a 10m gap between the offset rampart ends, now complicated by a later drainage ditch. At the main hillfort, the western rampart ends were inturned to form a short defensive passage-way in front of the original wooden gate.
In the centre are two large mounds, almost certainly Bronze Age barrows, and likely to cover cremation burials. Their irregular shape is due to ancient ploughing which has also destroyed the back slope of the rampart. No excavation has taken place but early forms of the place name 'Defnasburh' and 'Deveneberie' meaning 'Fort of the Devon People' suggest it was an important place inhabited in post-Roman times as well as in the Iron Age.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ba gur yrsg bs gur oneevre, haqre n ynetr fgbar.
Treasures
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