page_title: Ham Hill, Somerset
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ham Hill, Somerset / History
caption_attribution_description: Iron sickle, adze and neck torc found with a burial on Ham Hill. Photograph was taken in the Somerset County Museum in Taunton on 29-Oct-05.
context_page_description: Ham Hill is a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, Scheduled Ancient Monument, Iron Age hill fort, Roman site, Local Nature Reserve and country park, to the west of Yeovil in Somerset, England.
  The hill has given its name to the distinctive quarried hamstone and also to two nearby villages: Stoke-sub-Hamdon and Norton Sub Hamdon, whose names mean "under-Ham-hill".
  The Mendip Hills, Blackdown Hills, Quantock Hills and Dorset Downs are all visible from Ham Hill, especially from its war memorial. It is popular for picnicking, walking and mountain biking in the grassy hollows of the old quarry workings.
  The geology supports a wide range of fauna including mammals, birds, invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians living on lichens, fungi, ferns and flowering plants.
context_section_description: The name may come from the Old English 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 periods. Ham Hill is the site of a very large Bronze Age and Iron Age hill fort of the Durotriges tribe, from the 1st century BC. The 3 miles (5 km) ramparts enclose an area of 210 acres (85 ha). 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, cremations and burials.
  The hill was captured around AD 45 by the Roman Second Legion (Augusta), led by the future emperor Vespasian, 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. After the initial campaigns, a more permanent Roman camp was established at nearby Ilchester and the Fosse Way military road was constructed within 1 mile (2 km) of Ham Hill, on its way to Axminster 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. Other villas have been found at Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Odcombe, Lufton and West Coker. 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.
  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.
  In the 1800s there were 24 small quarries operating on the hill employing some 200 men. This continued into the Victorian era 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 Wars 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 with a flat top. The memorial is clearly visible from the surrounding countryside, including the A303 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.
caption: Celtic artefacts from Ham Hill
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