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14. At bottom of steps by slipway turn left along road. After 100m bear left signed ‘Outer Hope ½m’. After a fur- ther 100m turn right signed ‘Public Footpath Galmpton 1m’. Climb up past church, cross road, and continue up private drive and then field footpath up along broad ridge for 1 ½ miles. 15. Path crosses fi eld corner and stile to left onto road. Turn right and follow road back to Malborough. Cut straight through churchyard and along Higher Town back to main road and car park.


Heritage Standing on the site at Burleigh Dolts, it is not easy to make out the banks and ditches of the Iron Age earthwork that once stood here. It is easy though to see why this spot was chosen. The views over the over the surrounding landscape are commanding – and if this enclosure was ever threatened, it would have been impossible to approach in stealth. The earthwork here was quite complex, with three enclosures, more or less one inside another. It is thought that it was probably built in the middle to late Iron Age, between 350 BC and 50 AD. The problem with prehistoric times though of course, is that there was no written history, and so it is hard to pin things down for certain. In other times and places, much has been learnt from artefacts found


in graves. Inconveniently, Britons in the Iron Age didn’t seem to bury their dead and so we miss out on this kind of evidence as well. However, historical detective work and technology


offer some clues. Burleigh Dolts may have been used by the Dumnonii tribe. This group occupied much of the West country, including all of Devon and Cornwall, and were a fairly anarchic tribe. They did not use money, were quite scattered and decentralised, and were known for their friendliness to strangers. A geophysical survey was recently carried out at


Burleigh Dolts. This uses ground- penetrating radar to provide a sort of x- ray of the earth that gives an idea of what lies beneath. The picture it provided showed all sorts of interesting and odd shapes hidden in the soil. There are hints of archaeological remains of possible buildings as well as the ramparts and ditches, and what may even be two Bronze Age barrows. Centuries of weather and agriculture have not


been kind to Burleigh Dolts. The post- WWII drive for agricultural ‘improvement’ hit it particularly hard, and many of the banks and ditches were bulldozed. Now, however, the site has been fenced and returned to pasture by the present farmer to prevent any further damage from ploughing. The hillfort at Bolt Tail is thought to have been


constructed earlier than that at Burleigh Dolts, perhaps around 500–600 BC. This was a busy period of fort- building around the country, particularly in southern England. The ramparts are clearly visible as you approach Bolt Tail. The people here saved themselves the trouble of raising a bank right around a site by just walling off the whole tip of the promontory. Even so, it must have taken an immense investment of labour to build these ramparts, using only the primitive hand tools of the time. The growth in earthwork building at this time in history may have been prompted by increasing


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