St Catherine's Hill, Hampshire
Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
![]() | |
Location | Hampshire |
---|---|
Grid reference | SU 485 274[1] |
Interest | Biological |
Area | 43.0 hectares (106 acres)[1] |
Notification | 1986[1] |
Location map | Magic Map |
St. Catherine's Hill is a chalk downland hill and 43-hectare (110-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the outskirts of Winchester in Hampshire. It is owned by Winchester College but open to the public. It is managed by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, and topped by an Iron Age hillfort, a Scheduled Monument. In the Black Death, plague pits were dug in the dry valley on the south side of the hill. In the Early Modern period, a mizmaze was cut on the hilltop. Winchester College football used to be played on the hill; in an old custom, members of the college assemble on the hill every year, early in the morning.
Geologically, the hill is part of a local anticline in the chalk, which is of Turonian age in the Upper Cretaceous. The local ecology is dominated by the chalk, which results in a thin dark soil, a rendzina, which favours lime-loving plants from orchids to bellflowers.
History
Iron Age
The top of St. Catherine's Hill is ringed by the ramparts of an Iron Age hillfort,[2] a Scheduled Monument.[3] The fortifications consist of a single rampart (univallate dump or glacis) with an outer ditch, begun in the Early Iron Age; much of the way around there is also a counterscarp bank. At the north-east side is an original entrance, with the rampart turned inwards. There is no evidence of an initial wooden rampart, unlike some other hillforts in Wessex. In the Middle Iron Age, c. 400–300 BC, the fortifications were made higher and the entrance was reshaped.[4]
The site was occupied until the Middle Ages, as demonstrated by archaeological finds such as Iron Age pottery, a saddle quern, objects of worked bronze, iron, bone, and stone, as well as whetstones, spindle whorls, and remains of bones of sheep/goat, shorthorn oxen, horses, pigs, red deer, and dogs. From the Roman period there is pottery, a bronze coin of the emperor Carausius, and a bronze fibula.[4]
- Iron Age rampart and outer ditch, with the dry valley in the background
Medieval to Early Modern
At the top of the hill, a copse of beech trees contains the site of the 12th-century chapel of St. Catherine.[2] In the 14th century Black Death, bubonic plague killed many people in the area. Plague pits were dug in the dry valley beside the hill when all Winchester's graveyards became full.[5] There is a mizmaze near the hilltop copse, probably cut between 1647 and 1710 in the Early Modern period. It was remade between 1830 and 1840.[2]
- Plague Pits Valley. Burial pits were dug during the Black Death when the city's graveyards became full.[5]
Modern
Winchester College pupils and teachers assemble twice a year, early in the morning, on top of the hill in one of its customs, "Morning Hills"; this is the only regular whole-school assembly practised by the college.[6][7] The game of Winchester College football was formerly played on top of the hill; boys who were not playing stood beside the pitch to keep the ball from rolling away down the hill.[8] In 1922, money raised by The Old Wykehamist Lodge of Freemasons hosting the Public Schools Lodge's Council Festival was used to buy the hill and donate it to the college.[9] The hill remains in the college's ownership but is open to the public.[1][10]
The hill was cut off from the Itchen water meadows for over a hundred years by the construction of the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway in the 1890s and the Winchester By-pass (A33) in the 1930s. The railway closed in the 1960s and the road was removed following construction of the M3 motorway to the east through Twyford Down in the 1990s. Whilst this reunited the hill with its historic setting to the west, it is now largely cut off from the hills to the east. The routing of the original by-pass to the east of Winchester had been controversial[11] and its replacement by the M3 led to the Twyford Down protest.[12]
- St Catherine's Hill seen above Winchester College Chapel
- Engraving of St. Catherine's Hill as a bare hill in 1838, with a Winchester College football match, by then played in the Itchen valley rather than on the hilltop[7]
Natural history
Geology
Structurally, St. Catherine's Hill is part of the Winchester anticline. This is an upfold in the chalk at the western end of the South Downs. In the Winchester area the core of the anticline has eroded to expose older rocks in Chilcomb, Bar End and Winchester itself, leaving a near complete ring of inward-facing chalk scarp slopes including Magdalen (Morn) Hill to the north, Chilcomb Down and Telegraph Hill to the east, Deacon Hill, Twyford Down and St. Catherine's to the south and Oliver's Battery to the west. Whilst the highest part of the main ring of hills (which reaches up to 167 metres (548 ft) at Cheesefoot Head) is of the 'Lewes Nodular Chalk Formation', St. Catherine's is of the slightly older 'New Pit Chalk Formation'. Both date from the Turonian stage (93.9 to 89.8 mya) of the Upper Cretaceous. St. Catherine's Hill is separated from the higher Twyford Down by the dramatic dry valley known as Plague Pits Valley to the east and south, and truncated by the valley of the River Itchen to the west.[13][14]
- From the south
Ecology
The soil on the hill is a thin dark rendzina, directly on top of the chalk; it is thinnest high on the slopes, thickening into the valleys. This provides a varied set of local environments supporting a range of communities of flowering plants, including small populations of numerous downland species of orchids. Species uncommon for southern England include bastard toadflax and juniper. The hill has accordingly been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.[15] It is managed by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.[16]
Much of the site is chalk grassland, supporting the uncommon chalkhill blue butterfly. Where grazing has kept the grass short, the grassland is dominated by sheep's fescue grass, accompanied by lime-loving (calcicolous) plants such as common rock-rose, salad burnet, thyme, horseshoe vetch, kidney vetch, fairy flax, clustered bellflower, and orchids such as autumn lady's tresses and frog orchid.[15]
The north-facing side of the dry valley beside the hill is covered with taller grasses such as meadow fescue and upright brome, accompanied by taller forbs such as basil, betony, wild carrot, yellow rattle, and perforate St John's wort. A feature of the plant community is the presence of forbs of relatively wet grassland, such as saw-wort, fleabane, hemp agrimony, and devilsbit scabious.[15]
There is some invasive scrub with bushes such as hawthorn, blackthorn, privet, dogwood, and wild rose, especially on the northern side. It is controlled by grazing and cutting. The hilltop wood consists of beech trees.[15]
- Sheep controlling scrub invasion, with the hilltop beechwood in the background
- Primroses on the hilltop
References
- "Designated Sites View: St. Catherine's Hill". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
- "Hampshire Treasures". Hampshire County Council. 1999. p. 83. Archived from the original on 5 November 1999.
- Historic England. "St Catherine's Hill hillfort (1016489)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
- Corney, Mark; Payne, Andrew (2013). "The Monuments and Their Settings: St Catherine's Hill: Winchester; NGR SU 484 276". The Wessex Hillforts Project: extensive survey of hillfort interiors in central southern England. English Heritage. pp. 71–76. ISBN 978-1-8480-2221-8. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021.
- Giddings, Tim (27 April 2020). "A Plague on all the Houses: An Epidemiological History of Winchester". Winchester College. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- Lawson, W. H.; Hope, J. R.; Cripps, A. H. S. (1901). Winchester College Notions, by Three Beetleites. P. and G. Wells. pp. 55–57. OCLC 903325122.
- Sabben-Clare, James P. (1981). Winchester College: after 600 years, 1382-1982. Paul Cave Publications. p. 151. ISBN 0-86146-023-5. OCLC 10919156.
- Sabben-Clare, James P. (1981). Winchester College: after 600 years, 1382-1982. Paul Cave Publications. p. 105. ISBN 0-86146-023-5. OCLC 10919156.
Winchester Football ... was first played on the flat space at the top of St. Catherine's Hill.
- History of the new Museum at Winchester College Archived 2013-04-21 at archive.today
- "Map of St. Catherine's Hill". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
- uncredited (25 September 1929). "A by-pass road at Winchester: Opposition to proposed route". news. The Times. No. 45317. p. 9C.
- "The Twyford Down M3 protest in 1992 - in pictures". The Guardian. 28 September 2012. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- Booth K.A., 2002, Geology of the Winchester district, British Geological Survey, ISBN 0-85272-429-2 (booklet to accompany BGS 1:50,000 map sheet 299)
- Winchester, British Geological Survey 1:50,000 Map Series, Sheet 299, NERC, 2002, ISBN 0-7518-3340-1
- "St. Catherine's Hill SSSI" (PDF). Natural England. 22 August 1986. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- "St Catherine's Hill". Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
![](../I/Commons-logo.svg.png.webp)