Whitehawk Hill Camp

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

a) WHITEHAWK HILL CAMP: ‘White Hawke Hill’, which reaches 396 feet above sea-level, was recorded as such in 1587, but has the earliest known inhabited site in Brighton at the Neolithic Camp, one of twelve known causewayed camps of the Neolithic ‘Windmill Hill’ culture in Britain. Inhabited circa 2700 B.C., the camp, which is a scheduled ancient monument, covers twelve acres and was excavated by the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club in January 1929, 1932-3, and again in 1935 when Manor Hill was laid out over the site. The whole camp measures 950 feet north to south and 700 feet east to west, and has four concentric ditches, the innermost three feet deep and the outermost seven feet deep, which are interrupted by numerous causeways. Among the finds were decorated pots, flint instruments and human skeletons, now exhibited in Brighton Museum, but found amongst the animal bones were some charred human bones, suggesting that the inhabitants may have been cannibals. The ditches of the camp may still be seen, centred on the junction of Manor Hill and Whitehawk Hill Road. {247,248}

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.

Comments about this page

  • Please can you update this page! There are no references to more recent findings nor to the fascinating burials discovered on the site, including the young – pregnant? – woman.
    The picture created by the current page gives no idea of the cultured civilisation which created the place. We only have the suggestion that these people were possibly cannibals!

    By Simon Pascoe (17/03/2023)
  • Simon…please write it up! This site (which I helped to create in 1993) relies on hours of volunteer labour. You obviously have a passion for Whitehawk Hill and can advance our knowledge of Brighton’s oldest occupied site. The extract above is from 1990 (as it says above)and was part of Tim Carder’s ‘Encyclopaedia’.
    Brighton Museum has a very good display of the city’s early history in the Elaine Evans Gallery including the latest material on Whitehawk.

    By Dr Geoffrey Mead (18/03/2023)

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