Meare Lake Village – Somerset Iron Age Fen Cluster (Pool)
Meare Pool Iron Age Village · Meare Lake Settlements A & B · Sutton Hoo fen twin?
Iron Age British Late (Glastonbury tradition)·Somerset Levels Iron Age Britons·🇬🇧 Somerset, England, United Kingdom
About
About Meare Lake Village – Somerset Iron Age Fen Cluster (Pool)
Pair of Iron Age villages set on artificial peat islets within Meare Pool marsh—Meare Village East (300 BCE, 14 houses) and Meare Village West (250–50 BCE, 50 houses)—constructed as timber platforms on bog oak brush layers on lake bed, linked by causeway to Glastonbury. Excavated 1910 Gray & Bulleid contemporary with Glastonbury, East yields the earliest British dugout board boat and West displays organized street with ovoid houses 5–8 m, pottery kilns, lead-bronze casting hearths and baked clay loomweights. Pollen shows pool was alder carr + shallowing mere; seasonal lake-depth oscillation explains twin villages: East abandoned when pool expanded. Somerset HER protects as SAM.
Why it mattersTwin settlement model for Iron Age wetland adaptation—shows micro-ecological zoning where Pool level oscillation dictated village lifecycle; complementary to Glastonbury for settlement vs husbandry division.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Whether East and West sequential or contemporary rank differentiation
- 02Cause of early East abandonment—flood vs social fission
Theories
- 01Pool villages as seasonal specialized ironworking satellites of Glastonbury central place
- 02Meare as winter vs Glastonbury summer pair
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.300–50 BCE (Middle–Late Iron Age)
- Period
- Iron Age British Late (Glastonbury tradition)
- Culture
- Somerset Levels Iron Age Britons
- Builders
- Somerset wetland Iron Age communities
- Purpose
- Lake mound villages with causeway ironworking—seasonal lake-edge transhumance hamlet vs permanent at Glastonbury
- Abandoned
- c.50 BCE waterlogging abandonment both West + East
- Rediscovered
- 1910–1934 Gray & Bulleid; 1970s Coles re-survey
- Excavation
- Excavated
300 BCE
Meare East first platform in shallowing pool
250 BCE
Meare West expanded islet (50 houses) and causeway to Glastonbury
1910
Bulleid finds dugout canoe and East timber layer
1965
Coles confirms seasonal flooding model via pollen
On the ground
Structures & features
51.1710° N · 2.7980° W · 4 m · 3 mapped features
Meare Village West Isle
islet50-house islet with ironworking hearths
51.1710° N · 2.7980° WMeare Village East Platform
islet14-house earlier islet with board boat
51.1720° N · 2.7950° WMid-Pool Causeway Spur
causewayHazel causeway to Glastonbury Godney Moor
51.1740° N · 2.8100° W
Gallery