A
Discussion of Nether Wallop's Arthurian Connections
By
David Nash Ford
B A T T L
E O F
G U O L O P H
Chattis
Hill in Nether Wallop?
The
Tradition: In his Historia Brittonum, Nennius'
recorded that
"From
the reign of Vortigern
to the quarrel between Vitalinus and Ambrosius
are twelve years, that is Guoloppum, the Battle of
Guoloph"
Guoloph
is generally thought to refer to the Wallop Brook in
North-West Hampshire, the battle having taken place at
one of the three villages which take their names from
the stream: Over, Middle and Nether Wallop.
Modern
Archaeology:
In the Parish of Nether Wallop, just North-East of the
village of the same name, stands the great Iron-Age
Hillfort of Danebury. This has been the subject of a
major excavation by Professor Barry Cunliffe and his
team over a period of some twenty years. From 1968 to
1988, fifty-seven percent of the interior of the fort
was excavated and extensive evidence for Iron Age
occupation was recorded: numerous finds, 2500 pits,
500 storage
 buildings and seventy houses identified
from the maze of some 10,000 post-holes. There was no
evidence of occupation during the Roman period but, at
some undefined later stage, the defensive outer ditch
was redug. The sides of the silted up V-shaped channel
were cut back to make them vertical and the spoil
dumped in the interior to form a 36ft wide,
flat-bottomed ditch, 61/2ft deep: quite an obstacle.
The hornworks of the Eastern Entrance were also
heightened.
Possible
Interpretation:
Though there is no direct dating evidence for this
reconstruction of the defensives at Danebury,
unstratisfied sherds of 5-6th century coarse
grass-tempered pottery have been recovered from the
fort's interior. This would indicate a major
refortification of the site at the exact time that
Kings Vitalinus (Vortigern)
and Ambrosius are recorded to have been active in the
area! The latter may be remembered just to the north
in nearby Amport. Place-name evidence indicates that
there was an extensive survival of Celtic culture in
this region. Names such as Micheldever (Boggy Stream)
and Andover (Anu's Stream) are dead give-aways, while
further "An" names may infer a strong
regional cult surrounding the Celtic Goddess, Anu.
Danebury (earlier Dunbury) may itself derive from her
alternative name, being "Don's Bury" (or it
may merely show a combination of the Celtic word for
fort, Din, and the Saxon translation of Bury).
Could it be that the great Ambrosius
himself refortified Danebury just prior to the Battle
of Wallop in AD 437? If so, was his clash with
Vitalinus (Vortigern)
actually fought there? There is no archaeological
evidence to support such a theory, and it seems
probable that the battle actually took place just to
the south, where the enemy may have taken up a
strategic
position on what the Celts remembered as Cad (ie.Battle)
Hilll, now called Chattis Hill on the borders of
Nether Wallop and Broughton.
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