Cadbury Camp

Cadbury Camp is an Iron Age hillfort on the Tickenham ridge in North Somerset, 330ft above the village, built and occupied from the 6th century BC to the mid-1st century AD, probably by the local Dobunni tribe. Its gentle grass banks enclose about 7 acres. Archaeological evidence shows the hilltop in use from Neolithic times up to the 1940s, when it held a wartime searchlight battery, and it was once part of the Clevedon Court estate of the Elton family. The limestone grassland has never been affected by modern farming, so wild flowers are plentiful in spring and fungi in autumn, with buzzards circling overhead. The views run south to the Mendips, the Quantocks and Exmoor, out to Flat Holm and Steep Holm in the Severn Estuary, and west to south Wales and the two Severn bridges. Reviewers single out sunset as the time to be on top. Tips from visitors: park at Tickenham village hall, where the signed public footpath begins, and be ready for a climb that is mostly grassy, steep in places and ends at a stile.