Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 19 hours ago
In this video I visit the remarkable Pen Pits at Penselwood, on the Somerset/Wiltshire border — a landscape covered with thousands of pits and hollows which has fascinated antiquarians and archaeologists for more than two centuries.
Today the Pen Pits are generally understood to be the remains of extensive quarrying, particularly for the production of quern stones, with activity stretching back into the Iron Age. In the 19th century, however, their origin was the subject of considerable debate.
Sir Richard Colt Hoare described the Pen Pits in The Ancient History of Wiltshire (1812). Hoare believed the pits to be the remains of ancient British habitations and remarked upon the enormous area over which they extended. He also recorded the discovery of querns and pieces of querns in and around the site.
Later in the century, the Bristol antiquary and bookseller Thomas Kerslake developed a much more ambitious theory. He believed Pen Pits represented the remains of a great pre-Roman British settlement, which he identified with the lost Caer Pensauelcoit.
For anyone interested in following Kerslake's argument for themselves, his principal publications on the subject include:
• A Primæval British Metropolis: with some Notes on the Ancient Topography of the South-Western Peninsula of Britain (1877)
• Caer Pensauelcoit, a Long Lost Unromanized British Metropolis: A Re-Assertion Occasioned by Two Reports of an Exploration Committee of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (1882)
• The Liberty of Independent Historical Research (1885)
Kerslake's interpretation was challenged by archaeological investigation of the pits. General Augustus Pitt-Rivers — then still widely referred to as Lane Fox in earlier records — became involved in their investigation and carried out excavations at Pen Pits in 1883.
His findings were published as:
• Report on Excavations in the Pen Pits, near Penselwood, Somerset (1884)
An earlier account of investigations can also be found in the Report of the Pen Pits Exploration Committee (1879), published in the Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol. XXV.
Pitt-Rivers' excavations provided evidence against the idea that the thousands of pits represented the dwellings of a vast ancient city and supported their interpretation as quarry workings.
Whatever their original purpose, walking through Pen Pits today gives some idea of why the site inspired so much speculation. The sheer number of hollows creates a strange and distinctive landscape — and it is fascinating to think that people once seriously debated whether these woods concealed the remains of a lost ancient British metropolis.
Join me as I have a wander around Pen Pits and take a closer look for myself.
In this video I visit the remarkable Pen Pits at Penselwood, on the Somerset/Wiltshire border — a landscape covered with thousands of pits and hollows which has fascinated antiquarians and archaeologists for more than two centuries.
Today the Pen Pits are generally understood to be the remains of extensive quarrying, particularly for the production of quern stones, with activity stretching back into the Iron Age. In the 19th century, however, their origin was the subject of considerable debate.
Sir Richard Colt Hoare described the Pen Pits in The Ancient History of Wiltshire (1812). Hoare believed the pits to be the remains of ancient British habitations and remarked upon the enormous area over which they extended. He also recorded the discovery of querns and pieces of querns in and around the site.
Later in the century, the Bristol antiquary and bookseller Thomas Kerslake developed a much more ambitious theory. He believed Pen Pits represented the remains of a great pre-Roman British settlement, which he identified with the lost Caer Pensauelcoit.
For anyone interested in following Kerslake's argument for themselves, his principal publications on the subject include:
• A Primæval British Metropolis: with some Notes on the Ancient Topography of the South-Western Peninsula of Britain (1877)
• Caer Pensauelcoit, a Long Lost Unromanized British Metropolis: A Re-Assertion Occasioned by Two Reports of an Exploration Committee of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (1882)
• The Liberty of Independent Historical Research (1885)
Kerslake's interpretation was challenged by archaeological investigation of the pits. General Augustus Pitt-Rivers — then still widely referred to as Lane Fox in earlier records — became involved in their investigation and carried out excavations at Pen Pits in 1883.
His findings were published as:
• Report on Excavations in the Pen Pits, near Penselwood, Somerset (1884)
An earlier account of investigations can also be found in the Report of the Pen Pits Exploration Committee (1879), published in the Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol. XXV.
Pitt-Rivers' excavations provided evidence against the idea that the thousands of pits represented the dwellings of a vast ancient city and supported their interpretation as quarry workings.
Whatever their original purpose, walking through Pen Pits today gives some idea of why the site inspired so much speculation. The sheer number of hollows creates a strange and distinctive landscape — and it is fascinating to think that people once seriously debated whether these woods concealed the remains of a lost ancient British metropolis.
Join me as I have a wander around Pen Pits and take a closer look for myself.
