"And see you marks that show and fade, like shadows on the Downs? O they are the lines that the flint men made, to guard their wonderous town", Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill.
Hollingbury Fort has two main entrances, one faces broadly east, the other to the west. Entrances were a very important part of the structure of an Iron Age Fort. Not only did they present the weakest, most vulnerable part of the defenses which would be targetted by attacker, but they also offered the opportunity for display as the structures would be both visible from a distance and passed by anyone entering the site.
Only the east entrance has been investigated in any depth, through trenches excavated by Curwen in the 1930's. These showed that a massive gate four metres wide once stood here. On this side of the hill the ground is naturally defensive, falling away steeply into Moulscombe. As the ground is flatter in front of the west gate it is therefore likely that the defenses on this side will prove to be more elaborate. Toms' 1913 survey of the fort proved that the ramparts were built to a greater height on the more vulnerable western side.
During the excavation of the east gate, four rounded pebbles were found. These do not naturally occur on the hill and it is not too fancifull to think they may have been used as slingstones, either stockpiled by the defenders or flung at the gates by attackers.
The ramparts themselves were of an elaborate construction, more elaborate than one would generally assume. It has to be remembered that the whole tradition of hill fort building took some inspiration (by word of mouth and tales) from city building in the Classical world and that the ramparts offered an excellent opportunity to display wealth and power, being highly visible structures encircling hill-tops. Walking around Hollingbury today, the gently sloping grass-covered banks of the ramparts still stand a couple of metre high. Originally however the enclosing ditch would have been almost 2m metres deeper with near vertical sides and a flat bottom a metre wide (see illustration below).. Behind the ditch would have run a double row of large post holes (post holes infilled with concrete can still be seen near the east entrance). The front row of posts would have supported a timber pallisade behind which chalk rubble dug from the ditch would have been infilled. Given the depth of the ditch these ramparts could have attained a height in excess of 2m, giving a complete defensive height in excess of 4m. If you were attacking and ended up in the ditch you were going to end up feeling pretty vulnerable as god knows what rained down on you from high above.