An Iron Age hill fort with traces of an earlier enclosure, in the parish of Norton Bavant, near Warminster.
Some notes compiled by Danny Howell in 1990:
Scratchbury (the name is probably derived from Scratch – an old West Country word for the Devil, and burh – meaning an ancient camp) has a bank and ditch enclosing 37 acres and includes several burial mounds or tumuli.
Two barrows lie inside the north eastern part and one of these covered a cremation burial. A bowl barrow in the south west part which was excavated by Colt Hoare produced no burial, only animal bones and several burnt stones. A fourth barrow, less than a metre high, in the centre of the hill at the highest point, covered a cremation with a small bronze dagger and a pin of the same metal, as well as a large amber ring and 50 amber beads. These finds are now in Devizes Museum.
William Cobbett (1762 – 1835) referred to Scratchbury and Middle Hill as Roman camps; the earthworks of Scratchbury include a Romano-British (or maybe later) ditch running from east to west but archaeologists have dated Scratchbury to be a predominantly Iron Age hill fort. The Romans were once nearby though as discovery of the sites of two Roman villas at Pitmeads, between Sutton Veny and Norton Bavant, about two miles away, proves.
Immediately east of Scratchbury is Cotley, another hill with extensive earthworks and a number of barrow mounds, notably two visible on the skyline.