page_title: St. Catherine's Hill, Hampshire
section_title: Geology
hierarchical_section_title: St. Catherine's Hill, Hampshire / Geology
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking SW from the top of St. Catherine's Hill
context_page_description: St. Catherine's Hill is a 43-hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the outskirts of Winchester in Hampshire. It is managed by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, and most of it is an Iron Age hillfort, which is a Scheduled Monument.
context_section_description: 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 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.
caption: Looking SW from the top of St. Catherine's Hill
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