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Cranmore Castle

Hill forts in DevonScheduled monuments in DevonTiverton, DevonTourist attractions in Devon
CranmoreCastle1
CranmoreCastle1

Cranmore Castle is an Iron Age earthwork situated on a hillside above the Devon town of Tiverton in south-west England. Its National Grid reference is SS958118. It is an English Heritage 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 though more recent archaeological evaluations and histories, such as Mike Sampson's recently published work, point out that it 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 (390 ft) to 170 metres (560 ft) above sea level. This arrangement does however offer clear lines of sight to Cadbury Castle, Castle Close below Stoodleigh up the Exe Valley, Huntsham Castle, Hembury 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 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 there that Thomas Fairfax's artillery laid siege to Tiverton Castle. 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. 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. 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) at over 15 acres (61,000 m2). During the Prayer Book Rebellion 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 shots thought to be from the battle were discovered.The etymology of the name Cranmore Castle is unclear. Cranmore is not a local name and does not fit with any local placenames. No record of Cranmore seems to exist in any early records. It is possible that the name is derived from the battle described above. The archbishop at the time of the Prayer Book Rebellion was Thomas Cranmer so it is possible it derives from a variation of 'Cranmer Castle' in reference to the battle fought there.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Cranmore Castle (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Cranmore Castle
Exeter Hill, Mid Devon

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Latitude Longitude
N 50.896 ° E -3.482 °
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Cranmore Castle

Exeter Hill
EX16 4PQ Mid Devon
England, United Kingdom
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Tiverton railway station
Tiverton railway station

Tiverton railway station served the town of Tiverton, Devon, England. It opened in 1848 as the terminus station of a broad gauge branch line from the Bristol and Exeter Railway main line: the main line junction station four miles away had originally been called Tiverton Road but was renamed as Tiverton Junction when the branch opened. In 1884 and 1885, with the Bristol and Exeter Railway having been taken over by the Great Western Railway, Tiverton was reached by two other railways which then linked up to form a through route. From the north, the Tiverton and North Devon Railway was a branch line from the Devon and Somerset Railway at Morebath Junction and brought through services from Dulverton; to the south of Tiverton, the Exe Valley Railway, which opened in 1885, provided services through to Exeter, with a junction with the Bristol and Exeter main line at Stoke Canon. The arrival of this new route meant that the original station was not adequate and a large new station was built on the through line, with a junction for the original line to Tiverton Junction. The station was busy right up to the time of its closure, but traffic on the rest of the Exe Valley line suffered from competition with the roads. The Exe Valley line closed in 1963 and passenger services were withdrawn from the original line from Tiverton Junction just a year later, with goods facilities closing in 1967. The station was later demolished and much of the rail route around the town has disappeared under the A396 relief road system. A section of the rail route, between Manley Bridge over the Grand Western Canal and Old Road, adjacent to the junction of Blundells Road and the A369 Great Western Way in Tiverton, has been converted for use as a foot- and cycle-path. It is approximately 2.25 km in length.