Leith Hill
Leith Hill | |
---|---|
County Top | |
Coordinates | 51°10′33″N 0°22′11″W / 51.17583°N 0.36972°W |
Geography | |
Leith Hill in Surrey | |
Location | Surrey, England |
Parent range | Greensand Ridge |
OS grid | TQ139431 |
Topo map | OS Landranger 187 |
Leith Hill in southern England is the highest summit of the
Leith Hill is the highest ground for 79 km (49 mi).Four areas of woodland surrounding the hill comprise the 337.9-hectare (835-acre) Leith Hill Site of Special Scientific Interest, although the summit is excluded from this designation.[4]
The nearest railway station is
Leith Hill Tower
On the summit of Leith Hill is an 18th-century Gothic tower. In 1764–65 Richard Hull of nearby
Leith Hill Tower is 19.5 metres (64 ft) high and consisted of two rooms "neatly furnished", with a Latin inscription above the door announcing that it had been built not only for his own pleasure, but also for the enjoyment of others. Hull provided visitors with prospect glasses, similar to a small telescope, through which to survey the extensive views towards London and the English Channel, each some 25 miles (40 km) away.
When Hull died in 1772, at his request he was buried under the tower.[6] Following his death, the building was stripped of its contents, doors and windows, and fell into ruin. As a result, the tower was filled with rubble and concrete, and the entrance bricked up.
In 1864, William John Evelyn of nearby Wotton House decided to reopen it, but the concrete made this difficult, and so the additional turreted side-tower was added to allow access to the top of the tower.[6]
At the top of the tower there is a viewpoint indicator to commemorate
The tower was fully restored by the
History
Leith Hill was owned by the Evelyn family of Wotton House from the 17th to the early 20th centuries.[9] On the death of Lt. John Evelyn in 1922,[note 1] the executors of his will were required to raise money to pay death duties and they therefore offered the Tower and the surrounding five acres of Leith Hill for sale. After a campaign, organised in part by the Commons and Footpath Preservation Society, the land was bought by Wilfred James MacAndrew (a resident of Reigate and former co-owner of the shipping company MacAndrew & Co)[note 2] and donated to the National Trust.[9][11]
Leith Hill Place
Originally a gabled house dating from about 1600, Leith Hill Place (51°10′09″N 0°22′47″W / 51.1692957°N 0.3798451°W) was completely refaced in a
The house was opened to the public by the National Trust in 2013 and now serves as a memorial to Ralph Vaughan Williams.[14] Josiah Wedgwood's widow, born Caroline Darwin, created a rhododendron wood there, now open to the public.[15]
Geology
Like the other summits of the Greensand Ridge in the south of Surrey, the rock of which Leith Hill is composed, is primarily the Lower Greensand, overlaid with a harder layer of chert.[16] The greensand was deposited in the early Cretaceous, most likely in a shallow sea with low oxygen levels. Over the subsequent 50 million years, other strata were deposited on top of the Lower Greensand, including Gault clay and the chalk of the North and South Downs.[2]
Following the
Search for oil
A site on an ancient lane going up the hill was originally chosen by an oil company for exploratory drilling, however due to an active protest campaign and various legal objections raised by local groups and environmentalists, the lease on the land from the Forestry Commission expired before the drilling could start. The Minister for Environment subsequently decided not to renew the lease due to concerns of the effect it would have on nearby ancient woodland. The oil company has since stated it intends to find a new site from which to explore the same prospect. Locals have stated that they will continue to oppose this.[17]
Geodesy
Leith Hill Tower was the origin (meridian) of the 6 inch and 1:2500 Ordnance Survey maps of Surrey.[18]
References
- ^ ISBN 1-85284-068-4. Archived from the original on 22 August 2010. Dawson draws his information from various editions of Ordnance Surveymaps, but he does not specify which.
- ^ ISBN 0-11-884078-9.
- ISBN 0-319-22187-3.
- ^ "Designated Sites View: Leith Hill". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Archived from the original on 9 November 2018. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
- ISBN 978-1-84-953239-6.
- ^ a b c Historic England. "Leith Hill Tower (1028808)". National Heritage List for England.
- ^ surreyhills.org Archived 14 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Broomfield, Margaret (9 April 2014) [30 March 2014]. "Lithic implement". The Portable Antiquities Scheme. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
- ^ S2CID 145689873.
- ^ "Lieutenant John Harcourt Chichester EVELYN. Princess Louise's (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders)". The National Archives. 1914–1919. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
- ^ Bailey J (23 March 1923). "Leith Hill: Tower and five acres purchased". The Times. No. 43297. London. p. 13.
- ^ Ian Nairn and Nikolaus Pevsner, Buildings of England - Surrey, Penguin, 1962
- ^ Historic England. "Leith Hill Place (1028801)". National Heritage List for England.
- ^ Leith Hill Place Archived 20 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 18 October 2015
- ^ "gardenvisit.com". Archived from the original on 19 July 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
- ^ Bennison, GM; Wright, AE (1969). The geological history of the British Isles. London: Edward Arnold. p. 321.
- ^ "Oil firm withdraws test drilling plans". BBC News. 4 September 2018. Archived from the original on 5 September 2018. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 October 2016. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
Notes
- ^ John H. C. Evelyn served as a lieutenant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (a British Army line infantry regiment) during World War I.[10] He was badly injured at the Western Front and his leg was amputated in October 1918. He died on 2 January 1922.[9]
- ^ The MacAndrew family sold their stake in the business in June 1917. The company survives to this day as part of the French container transportation firm CMA CGM.
- ^ Leith Hill forms the watershed between the Mole (to the north east), the Wey (to the north west), and the Arun (to the south).
External links
- Leith Hill information at the National Trust
- Computer generated summit panoramas North South index