In the Middle Ages, in both England and on the Continent, Julius Saesar was remembered in legend as a builder of castles. He was sometimes also credited with the construction of prehistoric ‘camps’. Caesar’s Camp at Sandy was an Iron Age promontory fort on a spur commanding a view over the valley of the River Ivel. Steep slopes plus a rampart protected it on three sides, but any defences on its north side have been destroyed.
Other ‘Caesar’s Camps’ in southern England include those at Folkestone and Keston, Kent, on Wimbledom Common, London, and at Harmondsworth, Middlesex (ploughed out some time after the autumn of 1906). According to archaeologist Leslie Grinsell, writing in 1976, it was the popular attribution of Iron Age hillforts to the Romans during the 18th and 19th centuries that led to some hillforts being so called. Certainly the Wimbledon camp was earlier called Bensbury, while at Harmondsworth the tradition, firmly held by local inhabitants, appears to have begun with the 18th century antiquary William Stukeley’s surmise that the camp was one of Caesar’s station during his pursuit of Cassivellaunus.