Cranmore Castle is an Iron Age

British Iron Age

The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron-Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, and which had an independent Iron Age culture of...

 earthwork

Earthworks (archaeology)

In archaeology, earthwork is a general term to describe artificial changes in land level. Earthworks are often known colloquially as 'lumps and bumps'. Earthworks can themselves be archaeological features or they can show features beneath the surface...

 situated on a hillside above the Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

 town of Tiverton in south-west England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Its National Grid

British national grid reference system

The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using latitude and longitude....

 reference is SS958118. It is an English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 scheduled monument, and has been given a National Monument number of 34256.

The earthwork is widely described in guidebooks and histories as an Iron Age hill fort

Hill fort

A hill fort is a type of earthworks used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Some were used in the post-Roman period...

  though more recent archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 evaluations and histories, such as Mike Sampson's recently published work, point out that it is seems inefficient as a fortification, since it is overlooked from the south by the higher slope of Exeter Hill/Newtes Hill. The earthwork is also unusual in that the area it encloses slopes from 120 metres (393.7 ft) to 170 metres (557.7 ft) above sea level. This arrangement does however offer clear lines of sight to Cadbury Castle

Cadbury Castle, Devon

Cadbury Castle is an Iron Age Hillfort close to Bickleigh, Devon, England. It was later encamped by the Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil War under Thomas Fairfax when he laid siege to Bickleigh Castle....

, Castle Close

Castle Close

Castle Close is a circular earthwork located near Stoodleigh in Mid Devon, England at OS grid reference SS937181. It is described on maps as a settlement...

 below Stoodleigh

Stoodleigh

Stoodleigh is a village and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon, England, located north of Tiverton and south of Bampton. It is situated above the Exe Valley, close to the Devon / Somerset border...

 up the Exe Valley, Huntsham castle

Huntsham castle

Huntsham Castle, Devon, England is an Iron Age Hill fort enclosure, located 260M above sea level on the edge of the former Parish of Tiverton....

, Hembury

Hembury

Hembury is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure near Honiton in Devon. It dates from the late fifth and early fourth millennia BC onwards to the Roman Invasion. The fort is situated on a promontory to the North of and overlooking the River Otter Valley at approx 178 Metres above Sea Level.It has given...

 fort and other significant hills and earthworks, suggesting that all were contemporary. It also manages to overlook the confluence of the rivers Lowman and Exe

EXE

EXE is the common filename extension denoting an executable file in the DOS, OpenVMS, Microsoft Windows, Symbian, and OS/2 operating systems....

 and the forded crossings on those rivers, which a higher position would not allow.

The hillside that Cranmore Castle stands above is called Skrink Hills or Shrink Hills in various early histories of the area. and it is from here that Thomas Fairfax

Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron

Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron was a general and parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War...

's artillery laid siege to Tiverton Castle

Tiverton Castle

Tiverton Castle is the remains of a Castle with a later manor house within its grounds that stands on a cliffside above the banks of the River Exe at Tiverton in Devon, England....

. The promontory of land that links Cranmore to the edge of Newtes Hill is traversed by the old Exeter Road, which travels past the earthwork on its way from Tiverton to Exeter

Exeter

Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

. The hill and road have latterly been known as Exeter Hill, and this road almost certainly follows the path of a prehistoric trackway.

Current theories about the nature of the earthwork suggest that it might have been a winter enclosure for livestock or a market site, though the earthworks are very substantial for such applications and could even point to a tribal oppidum

Oppidum

Oppidum is a Latin word meaning the main settlement in any administrative area of ancient Rome. The word is derived from the earlier Latin ob-pedum, "enclosed space," possibly from the Proto-Indo-European *pedóm-, "occupied space" or "footprint."Julius Caesar described the larger Celtic Iron Age...

. Certainly the area would be large enough. The Ordnance Survey Map of Southern Britain in the Iron Age shows Cranmore as the largest Enclosure in Devon (along with Hillsborough

Hillsborough, Devon

Hillsborough is a Local Nature Reserve in Ilfracombe, North Devon and is known locally as the sleeping elephant. It is also the site of an Iron Age Hill fort atop the cliff on a Promontory at approx 115 metres above sea level. The fort takes the classic shape of a Promontory reinforced and cut off...

) at over 15 acres (60,702.9 m²).

During the Prayer Book Rebellion

Prayer Book Rebellion

The Prayer Book Rebellion, Prayer Book Revolt, Prayer Book Rising, Western Rising or Western Rebellion was a popular revolt in Cornwall and Devon, in 1549. In 1549 the Book of Common Prayer, presenting the theology of the English Reformation, was introduced...

of 1549 Cranmore Castle became the site of a fierce battle fought between the two sides over whether a child should be baptised according to the 'new' religion or the 'old'. The battle took place near a small chapel that stood at one corner of the site, near the road. The chapel was demolished in the 17th century, and in 1687 bones and musket shot thought to be from the battle were discovered.