About the reserve

Bigbury Camp is an Iron Age hillfort in Howfield Wood, a short hop from the centre of Canterbury.  The site was occupied from about 350BC and may have been stormed in one of the first engagements between the local peoples and the legions of Julius Caesar in 55BC.  Many of the defensive earthworks can still be seen today.  

The site was planted over with European Larch and Sweet Chestnut in the 18th and 19th century with the chestnut being used as hop poles in the nearby hop farms.  Kent Wildlife Trust is busy removing the plantations restore more natural habitats as they would have been when the site was occupied and to show the defensive earthworks that have survived for over two thousand years.  There is, on view, an artists impression of what the occupied site might have looked like.