At , Wheatham Hill is one of the highest hills 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 ...
. It is part of the
North Hampshire Downs.
Much of the hill is covered in mixed forest and there is a trig point at 244 metres, which is also the site of Cobbett's View. According to a nearby information panel:
:''"The excellent views from this hilltop were first noted in 1822 when
William Cobbett
William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign ...
rode through here, and subsequently published his "
Rural Rides
''Rural Rides'' is the book for which the English journalist, agriculturist and political reformer William Cobbett is best known.
At the time of writing in the early 1820s, Cobbett was a radical anti-Corn Law campaigner, newly returned to Engl ...
".''
::'' '...out we came, all in a moment, at the very edge of the hanger! And never, in all my life, was I so surprised and so delighted! I pulled up my horse, and sat and looked; and it was like looking from the top of a castle down into the sea; except that the valley was land not water' ''
Until 2010 this viewpoint had been lost for many years under recent tree growth. Yet an old trig point (triangulation station) remained to indicate that the view had once been visible for OS maps to be surveyed. And so Countryside Rangers felled these trees to reveal the spectacular views that Cobbett so much admired.
There is a minor track over the summit.
Ordnance Survey
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1:50,000 ''Landranger'' series 186. It is located in a
Special Area of Conservation
A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and a ...
known as the
East Hampshire Hangers
The East Hampshire Hangers are located in the English county of Hampshire and form a line of hills with steep scarps that marks the eastern edge of the Hampshire Downs and its boundary with the Western Weald, an area of rolling countryside east of ...
.
''East Hampshire Hangers''
at jncc.defra.gov.uk. Accessed on 2 Apr 2013.
On the southeastern spur of the hill in the woods is a tumulus
A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...
, evidence of prehistoric settlement in the area.[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, p. 17. . Varley's use of the term "North Downs" is taken to mean the main "Hampshire Downs", not the "North Downs" of Surrey and Kent.
References
Hills of Hampshire
{{Hampshire-geo-stub