At 251 metres, Ball Hill is one of the highest hills in the county of

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, and is on the

Wessex Ridgeway The Wessex Ridgeway is a long-distance footpath in southwest England. It runs from Marlborough in Wiltshire to Lyme Regis in Dorset, via the northern edge of Salisbury Plain and across Cranborne Chase AONB. The footpath was opened in 1994. At ...

Location

The summit of Ball Hill lies at the eastern end of a short ridge running from east to west. Its lower, western end is known as Church Hill. To the south a short spur drops steeply to the hamlet of

Plush Plush (from French ) is a textile having a cut nap or pile the same as fustian or velvet. Its softness of feel gave rise to the adjective "plush" to describe something soft or luxurious, which was extended to describe luxury accommodation, ...

in Watcombe Bottom. To the north the land descends more gradually to the vale of

Lydden Lydden is a civil parish and small village in the Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in F ...

. The hill is about 4 kilometres southeast of

Buckland Newton Buckland Newton is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated beneath the scarp slope of the Dorset Downs, south of Sherborne. In the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 622. The village covers around 6000&nb ...

, 6 kilometres west-northwest of

Cerne Abbas Cerne Abbas () is a village and civil parish in Dorset in southern England. It lies in the Dorset Council administrative area in the Cerne Valley in the Dorset Downs. The village lies just east of the A352 road north of Dorchester. At the ...

and 9 kilometres west of

Milton Abbas Milton Abbas is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England, lying around southwest of Blandford Forum. In the 2011 Census the civil parish had a population of 755. This planned community was built after the old Town was demolished in the 1 ...

. Other prominent hills in the vicinity include Lyscombe Hill (261 m) to the southeast on the other side of the hamlet of

Folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

1:50,000 Landranger series, no. 194

History

There is evidence of prehistoric settlement on almost every hill in the vicinity, with a

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

on Nettlecombe Tout (a spur of Lyscombe Hill) to the east,

cross dyke A cross dyke or cross-dyke (also referred to as a cross-ridge dyke, covered way, linear ditch, linear earthwork or spur dyke) is a linear earthwork believed to be a prehistoric land boundary that usually measures between in length. A typical cr ...

s and

tumuli A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

on the flanks of Lyscombe Hill to the southeast and a tumulus and

field system The study of field systems (collections of fields) in landscape history is concerned with the size, shape and orientation of a number of fields. These are often adjacent, but may be separated by a later feature. Field systems by region Czech Repub ...

on Church Hill to the west.

References

{{Authority control Hills of Dorset