Dundry Hill is immediately south of

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

: it includes farmland, a small number of houses and a church. It stretches east–west for some two miles. Most of the hill is within the district of

North Somerset North Somerset is a unitary authorities of England, unitary district in Somerset, South West England. Whilst its area covers part of the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Somerset, it is administered independently of the non ...

. At the hill's eastern end the southern slopes are within

Bath and North East Somerset Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) is a unitary authority district in England. Bath and North East Somerset Council was created on 1 April 1996 following the abolition of the county of Avon. It is part of the ceremonial county of Somerset. Th ...

, and the northern slopes are within the city and county of

, including the highest point in that county. The village of

Dundry Dundry is a village and civil parish, situated on Dundry Hill in the northern part of the Mendip Hills, between Bristol and the Chew Valley Lake, in the English county of Somerset. The parish includes the hamlets of Maiden Head and East Dun ...

, with its prominent church, is near the summit. At the eastern end is

Maes Knoll Maes Knoll (sometimes Maes tump or Maes Knoll tump) is an Iron Age hill fort in Somerset, England, located at the eastern end of the Dundry Down ridge, south of the city of Bristol and north of the village of Norton Malreward near the easter ...

, near

Norton Malreward Norton Malreward is a small Somerset village and civil parish south of Bristol, England at the northern edge of the Chew Valley. In 1895 Norton Malreward was combined with the neighbouring hamlet of Norton Hawkfield (also spelt Hautville) into ...

, an Iron Age

hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

and the start of Wansdyke. To the South lies the

Chew Valley The Chew Valley is an affluent area in North Somerset, England, named after the River Chew, which rises at Chewton Mendip, and joins the River Avon at Keynsham. Technically, the area of the valley is bounded by the water catchment area of t ...

. On the western side of the hill is a spring which becomes the

Land Yeo The Land Yeo is a small river which flows through North Somerset, England. It rises on Dundry Hill and supplies Barrow Gurney Reservoirs before flowing through various villages to Clevedon where it drains into the Bristol Channel. During the ...

. Dundry Main Road South Quarry is a 0.7

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

geological Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle o ...

near the village of

East Dundry East Dundry is a south-facing hamlet some 160 metres above sea level in a sheltered valley of Dundry Hill just south of Bristol, England. The hamlet is in the parish of Dundry and about two kilometres east of its village church. The iron ...

, because of the number of fossils in the inferior oolite. The Main Road Quarry exposes a fine section in the Middle and Upper Inferior Oolite, with the rocks lying stratigraphically below them visible at

Barns Batch Spinney Barns Batch Spinney () is a 0.06-hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest near the village of Dundry, North Somerset, notified in 1987. The English Nature citation says that Barns Batch Spinney is important because of the exposures ...

. The former characterised by a typically southern English-Normandy fauna, including the rich

ammonite Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) ...

occurrences of the "Brown iron-shot", and the latter by contrasting faunas of

Cotswold The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Juras ...

aspect. This contrast is direct evidence for movements of the Mendip Axis in

Middle Jurassic The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 163.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively rare, but geological formations co ...

times, making this an outstanding site for its bearing on studies of

palaeogeography Palaeogeography (or paleogeography) is the study of historical geography, generally physical landscapes. Palaeogeography can also include the study of human or cultural environments. When the focus is specifically on landforms, the term pale ...

References

External links

Dundry Hill Group
{{coord, 51.39756, N, 2.64391, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(ST553667), display=title Hills of Somerset Marilyns of England Highest points of English counties Hills of Bristol