Borough Hill Daventry -Civil War
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Borough Hill Daventry -Civil war Welcome to Borough Hill. It is a British Heritage protected site managed by Daventry DC. There’s no charge for the walk but I would welcome donations for the Mayor’s Charities - Home Start and The Friends of Danetre Hospital which you can send to the Town Council. From the car park go through the squeeze exit. Turn left and walk up along the fence until you get to the second grass track and walk up it and walk right around the building until you get to the part metalled track. This is your route, follow the direction of the green arrows. Use the purple route to avoid using gate latches. You can of course leave the route to look at other things on the hill. Here’s some background to read as you walk. Borough Hill is run as a Country Park by Daventry District Council is an acid grass land and as such is nutrient deficient and heath like. In the Jurassic period 150 to 200 million years ago it was in the tropics. Sand, sediment, and shells eventually formed the sandstone; travelling north to where it is today. Obvious remains on the hill belong to the Iron Age when there were two hill forts. The first contour fort possibly following a Bronze Age enclosure. The Bronze Age enclosure is not thought to have been a fort. It likely enclosed animal pastures and homes or was a meeting place for the surrounding area. You will also see the BBC and the brick-built GEE bomber guidance station. Now follow the path, on the right, with the hedge on your left. From Jun 7th, 1645 the royalist troops were camped on this hill for 6 days until moving to Mkt Harborough. The Officers and the King were billeted in Daventry itself. Which, if you climb up the hill a bit, you can see to the west centred around the Church. They were here waiting for supplies from Oxford. Originally their destination to relieve a siege. At this time the hill was common pasture so most of the towns beef cattle and sheep would be up here. Milking cows and pigs would be back down in the town. Keep walking until you find a concrete path on your right and follow it over the hill. At the top take the grass track on the right until it reaches another concrete path. In Charles’s time there would be far fewer trees, no hedgerows and open ridge and furrow fields for crops. Much higher ridges and deeper furrows than we see today and difficult to cross. The banks and ditches are roughly 21/3 miles round. Slopes down to the town would have been grass land. 5000 of the royalist foot were camped on the hill probably with some of the 5000 or so cavalry although many of these would be camped round and about Welton, Norton and especially Staverton And all the camp followers, baggage train, pack horses, carts etc A population 15 times larger than the town itself. Equivalent today of 400,000 Ramparts of the hill were said to have been reinforced. Growing crops would be trampled as troops moved about. Troops and others from the hill would be foraging for food, taking livestock to slaughter, removing stored crops and the overwintering store stock. His horse (cavalry) were allegedly rustling horses to be sent to Oxford and some left the hill to take them there. All this would leave a local population without food after the troops had moved on. The hill would no doubt be covered with cooking fires and personal latrines. Water would come from the Spelwell, which is in the bushes seen at the north of the Plantation, and probably some of the springs that have come back to life this year. Marked blue on the map, you can go down to look at it. It is a great observation post to the east, west and north and most of the south. Probably used as such through the ages in wars for 2700 years! Iron age-Anglo-Saxon-Viking. The slopes down to the town would have been grass land and no doubt the encampment covered them with people going back and forth. And most probably the animal drove ways up and down the hill. And would have been teeming with people back and forth and smoke! Horses tethered to pegs on the hill and surrounding areas, tents, fires, baggage train etc To the west behind the hedge is the line of the Bronze Age ditched enclosure and the later Iron Age hill fort ramparts. Three banks and ditches. Neolithic hunter gatherer stone axes have been found on the hill. And are in the museum. Beyond the golf course and down the hill some remains of Charles army have been found between the Norton and Buckby roads. By the GEE station was once a Bronze Age barrow (burial). And the second smaller but more strongly defended Iron Age fort now the golf course. Bronze Age axe heads have been found on the hill and are in the Town Council museum collection. The GEE station was used to direct bombers in WW2. On left is Spelwell within the ramparts. It is also thought that somewhere along this stretch there was the original entrance. You now have some idea of the scale of the Iron Age fort. As at most only 2- 300 people would have lived here it could not have been defended against an attack by armies. Not 5-10000. Now south on the concrete walkways belong to the BBC for maintenance engineers to use. The plantation to the east wasn’t there in 1745 as it was planted in 1900. As we walk along the spine you can see in the north Charnwood Forest 47 miles away beyond Leicester. To the west the northern Malvern’s and Worcester 52 miles away. In the east the ridge at St Neots at 32 miles and south east Woburn at 27 miles Down on the left just below the crest of the hill there were originally 18 roman grave barrows shewn on the map as circles. We can also see the A5, M1, railway and canal at Watford all making use of the natural cutting. The A5 was no doubt busy in 1645 as the major route from London, messengers would have wanted to use this rather than cross country At the end of an early ice age as the ice sheet melted the ice stopped just north of Watford village and stayed there for a long time wall of ice several hundred feet high with water gushing out of it carrying boulders and silt. As the ice melted back the water was trapped by this wall acting as a dam across the hills. Eventually as the water in a very large meltwater lake built up the dam burst and the force of water scoured out a big valley now known as Watford gap. No doubt you would also see the King’ his retinue and guards on the Weedon Road as he went to hunt at Fawsley Hall. Remember at night you can see the fires of large numbers of troops and in the day smoke from those fires in the daytime. The two groups of concrete marked as black Walk towards them. squares were for the short-wave aerial masts for the world service. Look east south east where the is on the map and you see Heygate feed mill and 1 mile beyond it 7 miles away is Kislingbury. Where on June the 11th Parliamentary forces arrived after a stop in Northampton. They and the Royalists on the hill would both have been able to see each other’s fires and track movements as the armies moved together. Overnight on the 12th the King got reports of these movements. As a result, he prepared to leave for Newark via Market Harborough and Melton Mowbray. And left at 5am on the 13th. Or more properly started to leave as it would take time for the army to follow on. In all10,000 men decamped overnight. Baggage trains followed. As they streamed off of the hill, Cromwell joined Fairfax in Kislingbury at 6am and both saw the smoke from the Hill as Charles readied to leave and no doubt from doused the fires. The army went via Guilsborough probably via West Haddon. The King and retinue went via Crick -Yelvertoft and Stanford on Avon where he stop at the (0riginal) Hall for refreshments. Armies on the road would have been unpleasant to be with. Horse and human excrement from the front was walked over by the rest. In Northamptonshire the roads churn to thick mud or dust, men and horses being forced to make their own tracks. Fires and cooking, rustling, theft, drinking went with the army. And with that Daventry sank back into an impoverished immediate future. Though no doubt the coaching trade would have resumed, and prosperity returned. For the rest of the story you need to see the museum or go on the Market Harborough/Naseby walks. As we return, we will walk through the armies of 21/2 thousand years ago. Or you can leave and make your own way back. You can go straight back to the car park or follow the dotted line to the remaining iron age ramparts. After Naseby the hill became Daventry’s horse racecourse. It's not known for sure when this started or where the course was, but races were run from 1724 to 1742 “around the earthworks".