Ham Hill 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 ...
(SSSI),
Scheduled Ancient Monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...
,
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
hill fort
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 ...
,
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
site,
Local Nature Reserve and
country park, to the west of
Yeovil
Yeovil ( ) is a town and civil parish in the district of South Somerset, England. The population of Yeovil at the last census (2011) was 45,784. More recent estimates show a population of 48,564. It is close to Somerset's southern border with ...
in
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
, England.
The hill has given its name to the distinctive quarried
hamstone
Hamstone is the name given to a honey-coloured building stone from Ham Hill, Somerset, England. It is a well-cemented medium to coarse grained limestone characterised by marked bedding planes of clay inclusions and less well-cemented material ...
and also to two nearby villages:
Stoke-sub-Hamdon and
Norton Sub Hamdon
Norton-sub-Hamdon is a village and civil parish in the South Somerset district of the English county of Somerset, situated five miles west of Yeovil. The village has a population of 743.
The village of Chiselborough is to the south, and the vi ...
, whose names mean "under-Ham-hill" (where "Ham" is
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
for a small settlement).
The
Mendip Hills,
Blackdown Hills,
Quantock Hills
The Quantock Hills west of Bridgwater in Somerset, England, consist of heathland, oak woodlands, ancient parklands and agricultural land. They were England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, designated in 1956.
Natural England have desi ...
and
Dorset Downs
The Dorset Downs are an area of chalk downland in the centre of the county Dorset in south west England. The downs are the most western part of a larger chalk formation which also includes (from west to east) Cranborne Chase, Salisbury Plain, H ...
are all visible from Ham Hill, especially from its
war memorial
A war memorial is a building, monument, statue, or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or (predominating in modern times) to commemorate those who died or were injured in a war.
Symbolism
Historical usage
It has ...
. It is popular for picnicking, walking and mountain biking in the grassy hollows of the old
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...
workings.
The geology supports a wide range of
fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology ...
including mammals, birds,
invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
s,
reptiles and
amphibians living on
lichens,
fungi
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...
,
fern
A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes exce ...
s and flowering plants.
Geology
The hill is part of a ridge of sandy
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
rock which is elevated above the lower lying
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
vales and nearby
Somerset Levels
The Somerset Levels are a coastal plain and wetland area of Somerset, England, running south from the Mendips to the Blackdown Hills.
The Somerset Levels have an area of about and are bisected by the Polden Hills; the areas to the south a ...
. The
sedimentary
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...
rocks were laid down in the part of the early
Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...
known as the
Toarcian
The Toarcian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, an age and stage in the Early or Lower Jurassic. It spans the time between 182.7 Ma (million years ago) and 174.1 Ma. It follows the Pliensbachian and is followed by the Aalenian.
The Toarcian ...
Stage.
They are given their colour by the weathering of the iron content of the stone and contain
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
s such as the
ammonite Dumortieria moorei.
The
hamstone
Hamstone is the name given to a honey-coloured building stone from Ham Hill, Somerset, England. It is a well-cemented medium to coarse grained limestone characterised by marked bedding planes of clay inclusions and less well-cemented material ...
is a distinctive honey-coloured building stone which has been used in many local villages and for buildings such as
Montacute House
Montacute House is a late Elizabethan era, Elizabethan mansion with a garden in Montacute, South Somerset.
An example of English architecture during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the Renaissance Classical, and one of fe ...
and
Sherborne Abbey
Sherborne Abbey, otherwise the Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin, is a Church of England church in Sherborne in the English county of Dorset. It has been a Saxon cathedral (705–1075), a Benedictine abbey church (998–1539), and since 1539, ...
. Extensive old quarry workings have changed the landscape into a warren of stony ridges and grassy hollows. Quarrying has unearthed many important historical artefacts, but also destroyed much of the archaeological context.
11.1
ha of the hill is designated as 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 ...
(SSSI),
notified in 1971, due of its particular importance to
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
s because of the assemblages of fossils which it contains, the sedimentary features which it displays and the way it relates to other rocks of equivalent age in the close vicinity.
Ecology
Ham Hill is managed as a
Local Nature Reserve, under Section 21 of the
National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949
The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which created the National Parks Commission which later became the Countryside Commission and then the Countryside Agency, which became ...
, because of the rare calcareous grassland which supports a wide variety of plant and animal species and its wild flower meadows and wide open grassland areas such as Witcombe Valley.
Fauna include
mammals,
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
s,
invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
s,
reptiles and
amphibians while the flora include lichens, fungi, ferns and flowering plants.
History
![Ham Hill Somerset Map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Ham_Hill_Somerset_Map.jpg)
The name may come from the
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
''ham'' and ''hyll'' giving a meaning of "the settlement hill", however its original name was Hamdon, meaning "the hill among the water meadows". There is evidence of occupation from the
mesolithic and
neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
periods. Ham Hill is the site of a very large
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
and
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
hill fort
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 ...
of the
Durotriges
The Durotriges were one of the Celtic tribes living in Britain prior to the Roman invasion. The tribe lived in modern Dorset, south Wiltshire, south Somerset and Devon east of the River Axe and the discovery of an Iron Age hoard in 2009 at Shalfl ...
tribe, from the 1st century BC. The ramparts enclose an area of . Most of the perimeter is a double bank and ditch ("
multivallate"). There is a major entrance to the south-east, on the line of the modern road and another to the north-east, following a track from the
Church of St Mary the Virgin at East Stoke in
Stoke-sub-Hamdon. Archaeological finds include bronzework,
chariot parts,
iron currency bars, gold and silver coins,
cremation
Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre is ...
s and
burials.
The hill was captured around
AD 45 by the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
Second Legion (Augusta), led by the future emperor
Vespasian
Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Empi ...
,
who had already captured
Maiden Castle and other hill forts to the south. Many Roman military artefacts have been found and it is quite likely that the Second Legion made a temporary camp on the hill, as at
Hod Hill
Hod Hill (or Hodd Hill) is a large hill fort in the Blackmore Vale, north-west of Blandford Forum, Dorset, England. The fort sits on a chalk hill of the same name that lies between the adjacent Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase. The hill fort ...
. After the initial campaigns, a more permanent Roman camp was established at nearby
Ilchester
Ilchester is a village and civil parish, situated on the River Yeo or Ivel, five miles north of Yeovil, in the English county of Somerset. Originally a Roman town, and later a market town, Ilchester has a rich medieval history and was a nota ...
and the
Fosse Way military road was constructed within of Ham Hill, on its way to
Axminster
Axminster is a market town and civil parish on the eastern border of the county of Devon in England. It is from the county town of Exeter. The town is built on a hill overlooking the River Axe which heads towards the English Channel at Ax ...
and the garrison at
Exeter. The area was very prosperous in the Roman period and several major villas have been found nearby, including one on the eastern part of the hill in the field known as "Warren", with extensive
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
. Other villas have been found at
Stoke-sub-Hamdon,
Odcombe, Lufton and
West Coker
West Coker is a large village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated south west of Yeovil in the South Somerset district.
History
The name Coker comes from Coker Water ("crooked stream" from the Celtic ''Kukro'').
Artifacts from early ...
. Just to the east of the main plateau is the isolated St. Michael's Hill, the "pointed hill" that gives its name to the village of
Montacute and which was turned into a
motte-and-bailey castle by the
Normans
The Normans ( Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Franks and Gallo-Romans. ...
.
![Iron sickle, torc and adze](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Iron_sickle%2C_torc_and_adze.JPG)
South of the main hill are
strip lynchets, or low terraces created by ancient ploughing and cultivation and the
deserted medieval village of Witcombe (or Whitcombe), which was finally abandoned in the 17th century.
![Ham Hill Stone Circle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Ham_Hill_Stone_Circle.jpg)
In the 1800s there were 24 small quarries operating on the hill employing some 200 men. This continued into the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
with over 200 small family run quarries and masonry businesses. Many of these small quarries had ceased working by 1910. Today hamstone is only quarried in two areas at the top of Ham Hill. The North quarry, near the modern stone circle and war memorial, is the longest running hamstone quarry in existence. The southern, Norton Quarry extracts its stone from some 20–30 metres below the surface and is quarried by Harvey Stone. This quarry was reopened around 15 years ago, having been the last quarry abandoned in the 1930s due to there being, according to the masons working the hill "no good quality stone left". Both quarries are owned by the
Duchy of Cornwall.
The northern end of the plateau is crowned by a war memorial to the dead of the nearby village of
Stoke-sub-Hamdon killed during the two
World War
A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World WarI (1914 ...
s and subsequent conflicts. It was designed in 1920 and unveiled in 1923 with four steps which lead to a square plinth and a tapering four-sided
obelisk
An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by An ...
with a flat top. The memorial is clearly visible from the surrounding countryside, including the
A303
The A303 is a trunk road in southern England, running between Basingstoke in Hampshire and Honiton in Devon via Stonehenge. Connecting the M3 and the A30, it is part of one of the main routes from London to Devon and Cornwall. It is a pri ...
trunk road which now follows the course of the Fosse Way near the base of the hill. Just below the Monument is a bench dedicated to the memory of local student Alan Kneebone, who was murdered in 2001 while at
Wakefield College
Wakefield College is a Further Education and Higher Education College in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It has provided education in the city since 1868. On 1 March 2022, the college merged with Selby College to form the 'Heart of Yorkshi ...
.
Recreation
![Ham Hill War Memorial](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Ham_Hill_War_Memorial.jpg)
The hill and the country park around it provide a venue for a variety of leisure and recreational uses, including walking, horse riding, mountain biking and
orienteering. It is very popular with dog walkers. It is the end of the
Leland trail, a footpath which runs from
King Alfred's Tower to Ham Hill Country Park.
There is a limited amount of climbing available at Ham Hill with roughly 20 routes. These are top roped routes due to the nature of the rock, the difficulty of "topping out" and because the rock is of geological interest. There are also several
bouldering
Bouldering is a form of free climbing that is performed on small rock formations or artificial rock walls without the use of ropes or harnesses. While bouldering can be done without any equipment, most climbers use climbing shoes to help se ...
problems.
There are two compass trails for orienteering: one in the stone circle area and one in Witcombe Valley. They are marked by sets of letters printed on small squares from A to J, which are attached to fence posts, signposts, gates and boulders.
Ham Hill is close to the
Monarch's Way
The Monarch's Way is a long-distance footpath in England that approximates the escape route taken by King Charles II in 1651 after being defeated in the Battle of Worcester. It runs from Worcester via Bristol and Yeovil to Shoreham, West Su ...
a
long-distance
footpath which approximates the
escape
Escape or Escaping may refer to:
Computing
* Escape character, in computing and telecommunication, a character which signifies that what follows takes an alternative interpretation
** Escape sequence, a series of characters used to trigger some so ...
route taken by
King Charles II in 1651, after being defeated at the
Battle of Worcester
The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell d ...
. and the start of the
Liberty Trail which covers to
Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Heri ...
in
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
.
Country Park
Ham Hill is operated as a
country park by
South Somerset District Council
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...
and is visited by over 250,000 people each year.
Prior to the designation of Ham Hill as a country park, three local farms used ancient free range grazing rights on the main grass area of the hill. Country Park status brought more visitors and most importantly, more dogs. The dogs made the grazing of sheep impossible. This has resulted in a noticeable change in vegetation in the last forty years. In many areas, what were areas of short-cropped grassland interspersed with short stemmed plants such as
wild thyme
''Thymus serpyllum'', known by the common names of Breckland thyme, Breckland wild thyme, wild thyme, creeping thyme, or elfin thyme, is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to most of Europe and North Africa. It ...
and
clover
Clover or trefoil are common names for plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (from Latin ''tres'' 'three' + ''folium'' 'leaf'), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume or pea family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus ...
s have been replaced by rank bracken,
gorse,
bramble
A bramble is any rough, tangled, prickly shrub, usually in the genus ''Rubus'', which grows blackberries, raspberries, or dewberries. "Bramble" is also used to describe other prickly shrubs, such as roses (''Rosa'' species). The fruits inclu ...
and wild parsley. The absence of the sheep has also enabled woodland to overrun and obscure the previously grassed Iron Age earthworks, most noticeably on the northern flank of the hill. A disastrous fire on the south-west flank of the hill (overlooking Little Norton) in the drought summer of 1976 was believed to have been caused by a discarded cigarette. The vegetation on the entire side of the hill was destroyed. When regrowth appeared, bracken was the dominant vegetation. In some places this has now given way to woodland, but the fine grassland of before the fire has not returned.
Other changes are due to farming habits. In previous years the plateau fields were almost exclusively used for grazing or growing spring wheat and left fallow during the winter. In some years the fields were lightly ploughed and
mangolds grown for winter fodder. Following a change in ownership during the 1980s, this changed to winter-sown grain with deep ploughing with sludge injection. The change caused an immediate change to the wildlife. The winter flocks of
finch
The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usua ...
es were lost, the
yellowhammer
The yellowhammer (''Emberiza citrinella'') is a passerine bird in the bunting family that is native to Eurasia and has been introduced to New Zealand and Australia. Most European birds remain in the breeding range year-round, but the eastern ...
s disappeared, the
skylark
''Alauda'' is a genus of larks found across much of Europe, Asia and in the mountains of north Africa, and one of the species (the Raso lark) endemic to the islet of Raso in the Cape Verde Islands. Further, at least two additional species are ...
s nearly so. The deep ploughing proved counter productive as millions of
poppy seeds were brought to the surface making the grain difficult to harvest - something that had been warned of years earlier by a previous farmer, but disregarded. It was around this time that deep ploughing probably damaged the remains of the Roman mosaic at Batemore; the site was ploughed over (it had never been marked on the ground) and small pieces of tile were brought to the surface. The plateau fields are now under the control of the park authorities, who are attempting to restore them by allowing natural grassland regrowth, with controlled sheep grazing.
References
Other reading
Randall, C. E., 2010. Livestock and landscape: exploring animal exploitation in later prehistory in the South West of Britain. PhD Thesis (PhD). Bournemouth University. Appendix 5 Ham Hill
{{Authority control
Hill forts in Somerset
Hills of Somerset
Roman fortifications in England
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset
Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1971
Archaeological sites in Somerset
Scheduled monuments in South Somerset
Nature reserves in Somerset
Country parks in Somerset
Quarries in Somerset
Roman legionary fortresses in England