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Haddon Hill

ExmoorHills of Somerset
Brompton Regis Hadborough trig point geograph.org.uk 533250
Brompton Regis Hadborough trig point geograph.org.uk 533250

Haddon Hill is a prominent east–west aligned ridge in west Somerset, England, close to Hartford within the civil parish of Brompton Regis. It lies on the south-eastern fringe of Exmoor National Park though is separated from the Exmoor massif itself by the valleys of the rivers Haddeo and Exe The highest point of the ridge at OS grid reference SS 962286 is crowned by a trig point at 1,164 feet (355 m) above sea level. Much of the upper part of the hill is mapped as open access under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and hence available for public access on foot. A couple of public footpaths traverse the hill north–south whilst numerous tracks run along its length. The larger part of the hill is within the national park, the boundary of which runs along the B3190 road which runs diagonally across the eastern end of the ridge en route from Watchet to Bampton. Vehicular access is available off this road. The hill affords views across Wimbleball Reservoir which occupies the Haddeo valley immediately to its north. Along with its eastern neighbour, Heydon Hill, Haddon Hill is largely formed from the Pickwell Down Sandstones, a thick sequence of Devonian age sedimentary rocks. The stone has been quarried in the past.A tree ring, surrounded by a bank and ditch, on the hill was previously thought to be a Bronze Age tumulus although this is no longer the case. There is a Bronze Age cairn which is 9.3 metres (31 ft) in diameter. Several Roman coins have been found at Hadborough at the western end of Haddon Hill.During World War II a military camp was built on the hill with several buildings to accommodate soldiers from the United States Army during the buildup to the Normandy landings in 1944.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Haddon Hill (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.05 ° E -3.4833333333333 °
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Address

Haddon Hill

Haddon Lane
TA4 2DR
England, United Kingdom
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Brompton Regis Hadborough trig point geograph.org.uk 533250
Brompton Regis Hadborough trig point geograph.org.uk 533250
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Nearby Places

Morebath
Morebath

Morebath is an upland village in the county of Devon, England. It is mostly given over to sheep-farming, and situated on the southern edge of Exmoor. An account of life in Morebath in the 16th century can be read in The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village by Eamon Duffy (published in 2001 by Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-09185-0). Then, as now, Morebath was populated by no more than 300 people, drawn from some thirty families, living and working on the land. During the often turbulent period of the Reformation, its inhabitants relied on the guidance of their priest, Christopher Trychay, Vicar of Morebath from 1520 to 1574. His detailed hand-written records were transcribed by the Rev. J. Erskine Binney, and published by James G. Commin of Exeter in 1904 as a separate volume in the Devon Notes & Queries series, under the title The Accounts of the Wardens of the Parish of Morebath, Devon. They provide an insight into the life of this small English community. The church is dedicated to St. George. The village was formerly served by two railway stations. Morebath railway station (initially opened in 1873 as "Morebath and Bampton") on the Devon and Somerset Railway was actually nearer to Shillingford, and about a mile-and-a-half from Morebath itself. Morebath Junction Halt, which opened in 1928, was a single-platform halt set among fields in the valley beyond Ashtown Farm, and had no access road, though there was a footpath to it from Ashtown, which extended along the edge of fields to Chilpark on the B3190, close to the main part of the village. It was served by the Exe Valley Railway, as well as the Devon and Somerset line, and therefore had a better service than Morebath railway station: it was also much closer to Morebath village itself. Both stations closed in 1966. The actress Caroline Quentin resides in the village with her family.