Butser Hill
Butser Hill, Langrishparish:
county:
coords:
Langrish
Hampshire
SU7120
otherwise: bryttes oran, 956-13; byrthes oran, 959-963
BUTSER HILL in Buriton
Old English 'Briht's slope'. 'Ora' is often used inland for quite prominent hills.
The place is described in text Cobbett 1830
- South Downs
Period - 19th century, early
... Or way, therefore, this morning, was over Butser-hill to Petersfield, in the first place; then to Lyphook and then to this place [Thursley], in all about twenty-four miles. Butser-hill belongs to the back chain of the South-downs; and, indeed, it terminates that chain to the westward. It is the highest hill in the whole country. Some think that Hindhead, which is the famous sand-hill over which the Portsmouth road goes at sixteen miles to the north of this great chalk-hill; some think that Hindhead is the highest hill of the two. Be this as it may, Butser-hill, which is the right-hand hill of the two between which you go at three miles from Petersfield going towards Portsmouth; this Butser-hill is, I say, quite high enough; and was more than high enough for us, for it took us up amongst clouds that wet us very nearly to the skin. In going from Mr. Goldsmith's to the hill, it is all up hill for five miles. Now and then a little stoop; not much; but regularly with these little exceptions, up hill for these five miles. The hill appears, at a distance, to be a sharp ridge on its top. It is, however, not so. It is, in some parts, half a mile wide or more.
The road lies right along the middle of it from west to east, and, just when you are at the highest part of the hill, it is very narrow from north to south; not more, I think, than about a hundred or a hundred and thirty yards. This is as interesting a spot, I think, as the foot of man ever was placed upon. Here are two valleys, one to your right and the other to your left, very little less than half a mile down to the bottom of them, and much steeper than a tiled roof of a house. These valleys may be, where they join the hill, three or four hundred yards broad. They get wider as they get farther from the hill. Of a clear day you see all the north of Hampshire; nay, the whole county, together with a great part of Surrey and of Sussex. You see the whole of the South-Downs to the eastward as far as your eye can carry you; and, lastly, you see over Portsdown Hill, which lies before you to the south; and there are spread open to your view the isle of Portsea, Portchester, Wimmering, Fareham, Gosport, Portsmouth, the harbour, Spithead, the Isle of Wight and the ocean. ... ... We frequently talk of clouds coming from dews; and we actually see the heavy fogs become clouds. We see them go up to the tops of hills, and, taking a swim round, actually come and drop down upon us and wet us through; but, I am now going to speak of clouds coming out of the sides of hills in exactly the same manner that you see smoke come out of a tobacco-pipe, and, rising up, with a wider and wider head, like the smoke from a tobacco-pipe, go to the top of the hill, or over the hill, or very much above it, and then come over the valleys in rain. ... These appearances take place, especially in warm and sultry weather. It was very warm yesterday morning: it had thundered violently the evening before: we felt it hot even while the rain fell upon us at Butser-hill.
The place is described in text Walton 1820s
- Hampshire
Butser Hill (917 feet), the highest of these [South Downs], is sometimes considered to form the western termination of the South Downs; ...
Shown on an old map by Harrison 1788 (perhaps)
- hill - settlement, hamlet - Finchdean Hundred - Hampshire
Period - 1780s
Shown on an old map by Morden 1695
- settlement, hamlet, hill - Eastmeane Hundred - Hampshire
Period - 1690s-1720s
- hill - Hampshire
Shown on an old map by Blaeu 1645
- hill - Eastmeane Hundred - Hantshire
Shown on an old map by Speed 1611
- hill - Eastmeane Hundred - Hantshire
