Access to the fort is easy enough. Just off the A6097 is a minor road, the footpath that leads up to the fort is well signposted from here, and there’s room to get a car off the road.
The fort encloses roughly a hectare. Entrances can be seen in the NorthWest and East.
The forts defences are still in good nick, a triple bank and ditch to the East altho’ this side is covered in trees, the size of the the defences is impressive,
on the West a bank ditch and counterscarp.
The site sits behind two large mounds, the one nearest the entrance, is called Robin Hoods Pot and at over 6m high is thought to be a barrow.( See Rhiannons post Robin Hood’s Pot )
A top place.
I just did my first Mo'fest, and in the course of proceedings took a walk back up Greaves lane to the two mounds clocked on the way in. Looking down from what I now know to be the 'pot', I scoped the earthworks of the Oldox hill fort and obviously roamed around it. The guy I was with seemed to think that both mounds were burial in nature, though to me the larger seems to be a denuded section of the wooded ridge.
The fort below doesn't convince me totally in terms of ideal topography. One side (the eastern side) does of course present a lofty slope were you to attack it (for whatever reason) yet the other three sides are somewhat less so. The northern and western facing boundaries in particular offer little warning of pending attacks and are also lower than the surrounding topography, meaning that your attackers would have the advantage of height as well as surprise. Based upon this, I just didn't see it as a fort designed and built by people who were by then quite savy in such issues.
If, however, we accept the Pot as a burial mound then would the ditch and bank enclosure then become a meeting place-albeit a somewhat irregualrly shaped one- where people gathered annually to pay their respects to the dead (the Pot) do a little trading and generally conduct whatever other business they deemed appropriate at the time? There does seem to be a distinct cut on the northern bank indicating an entrance (or exit) and one in fact within the sides of the other three boundaries as well. This, if memory serves, is somewhat similar to other enclosures strongly suggestive of ceremonial meeting places...as endorsed by Francis Prior amongst others?
Just a few thoughts from an armchair enthusiast, and as such one who is quite happy to be shot down and corrected by superior knowledge of this location.