History
It is believed to have been built, around 250 BC, by the Dobuni who were one of the Celtic tribes living in the British Isles prior to the Roman invasion of Britain. The name Maes Knoll is derived from the Celtic word Maerc meaning boundary. The existing scarp slopes were steepened and, on the north-western edge of the fort is an earthen mound, known as Maes Knoll Tump, about 7.5 metres (25 ft) above the rests of the fort defences, which is 60 metres (200 ft) across and 15 metres (49 ft) above a defensive ditch.
The later Wansdyke runs west from it along the north side of Dundry Hill and south-east from it.
During the Second World War, a draughty, rectangular, corrugated-iron hut on the top of the tump sheltered Dundry Home Guard soldiers, allowing them to watch for enemy aircraft and potential parachute or glider invasions of Bristol. The flat plateau immediately to the east of Maes Knoll tump had perhaps 50 stone cairns to deter enemy glider landings.
Read more about this topic: Maes Knoll
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)