Hollingbury Camp is a univallate Iron Age hillfort on the South Downs above Brighton, enclosing roughly 3.6 hectares, with possible later activity including the suggested remains of a Romano-Celtic temple and three Bronze Age bowl barrows within or adjacent to the ramparts. The hillfort itself was constructed in the earlier first millennium BC; any Roman-period religious use would have been a secondary phase, plausibly between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, paralleling the well-documented reuse of older monuments as sacred sites across southern Britain.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
If correctly identified, the temple fits a regional pattern of Romano-Celtic shrines sited within or beside earlier earthworks (e.g. Lancing Down, Chanctonbury Ring, Maiden Castle), suggesting continuity of a sacred landscape on the Sussex Downs rather than any major civic or military role. Its prominent hilltop position above the coastal plain would have made it a visible local cult focus.
Excavations in the 1908 (Curwen) and later 20th-century campaigns concentrated on the hillfort defences and hut circles, with finds spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages; evidence for a Roman temple at Hollingbury is slight and largely inferential, and I am not aware of confirmed structural remains or a published votive assemblage from the site. The three bowl barrows are accepted
Hollingbury Camp is a univallate Iron Age hillfort on the South Downs above Brighton, enclosing roughly 3.6 hectares, with possible later activity including the suggested remains of a Romano-Celtic temple and three Bronze Age bowl barrows within or adjacent to the ramparts. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a temple site from the Roman period in Britain.
Hillfort, the possible remains of a Romano-Celtic temple and a group of three bowl barrows at Hollingbury is classified as a Roman temple — a religious site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including West Blatchington (4.2 km), Roman road and 18th century coaching road N of Pyecombe church (6 km), Romano-British farmstead, field system and trackway on Wolstonbury Hill (7 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Hillfort, the possible remains of a Romano-Celtic temple and a group of three bowl barrows at Hollingbury