At , Sidown Hill is the third highest hill in the county of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

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 ...

. At the summit is a mid-18th century

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

known as Heaven's Gate which is hidden by the trees covering the top of the hill. The hill is on the watershed of the

Hampshire Basin The Hampshire Basin is a geological basin of Palaeogene age in southern England, underlying parts of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Dorset, and Sussex. Like the London Basin to the northeast, it is filled with sands and clays of Paleocene and yo ...

and forms part of the

Hampshire Downs The Hampshire Downs form a large area of downland in central southern England, mainly in the county of Hampshire but with parts in Berkshire and Wiltshire. They are part of a belt of chalk downland that extends from the South Downs in the southe ...

. Varley, Telford (1922). ''Hampshire'',

Cambridge County Geographies Cambridge County Geographies is a book series published by Cambridge University Press. Volumes *Aberdeenshire by Mackie, Alexander *Argyllshire and Buteshire by MacNair, Peter (wikisource) *Ayrshire by Foster, John *Banffshire by Barclay, W. *Bedf ...

, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013 paperback edition, pp. 24/25. . To the east is Beacon Hill (). On 5 May 1945 a

USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

of 326th Bombardment Squadron crashed on Sidown Hill with the loss of six of its crew of seven.

References

Hills of Hampshire {{Hampshire-geo-stub