Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – The Fours - The 400m Hills of England

Bury Ditches (SO 327 838)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the The Fours – The 400m Hills of England, with the summit height, col height and their locations, the drop and status of the hill derived from a Trimble GeoXH 6000 survey conducted by Myrddyn Phillips. 

Bury Ditches (SO 327 838)

The criteria for the list that this name change applies to are:

The Fours – The 400m Hills of England.  English hills at or above 400m and below 500m in height that have 30m minimum drop.  Accompanying the main list are three categories of sub hills, with this hill being classified in the 390m Sub-Four category, the criteria for which are all English hills at and above 390m and below 400m in height that have 30m minimum drop.  The list is co-authored by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams and the 2^nd edition of the booklet containing this list was published by Mapping Mountains Publications on the 24^th April 2018.  

The Fours - The 400m Hills of England by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams

The hill is adjoined to the Cilfaesty group of hills, which are situated in the county of Shropshire close to the Welsh border, and it is positioned the B4385 road to its snorth, the A488 road to its west, the B4368 road to its south and a minor road to its east, and has the small towns of Bishop’s Castle towards the north and Clun towards the south-west.

When the listing that is now known as The Fours – The 400m Hills of England was originally compiled this hill was not included as it did not at that stage include a sub-list to the hills at and above 390m and below 400m in height.  When this list was subsequently uploaded to the RHB Yahoo group file database and data then augmented from Clem Clements it appeared under the name of; Sunnyhill (Bury Ditches).  Subsequently the hill was listed as Sunnyhill in the 1st edition of The Fours when the list was published by Europeaklist in December 2013. 

Hill list authors are prone to list a hill by the name that appears nearest to its summit on contemporary Ordnance Survey maps, without much consideration for its local or historical use, or whether map placement is appropriate, and in the case of this hill there are two names that are consistently applied near to its summit on different scaled Ordnance Survey maps, these names are Bury Ditches and Sunnyhill. 

Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map

Extract from the series of Ordnance Survey Six-Inch maps

Information board at the start of the main path to Bury Ditches

With time and inclination place-name data can be improved either by asking local people or by examining historic documents, through this form of research the prioritised locally known name for the hill can usually be found, and in this case it was research and an on-site visit that deduced the locally known contemporary name for this hill is Bury Ditches, with the caveat that historic documentation gives the older name for the hill as Tongley Hill.

Extract from:  A system of Geography: Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 by James Playfair

Extract from:  Companion to the Wye tour, Ariconensia; or, Archæological Scetches of Ross... by Thomas Dudley Fosbroke

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in the The Fours - The 400m Hills of England is Bury Ditches, and this was derived from an on-site visit, historic and contemporary Ordnance Survey maps and local enquiry.  

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Cilfaesty

Name:  Bury Ditches

Previously Listed Name:  Sunnyhill 

OS 1:50,000 map:  137

Summit Height:  394.1m (converted to OSGM15)

Summit Grid Reference:  SO 32753 83805

Col Height:  247.5m (converted to OSGM15)

Col Grid Reference:  SO 29512 83148  

 

Drop:  146.7m

 

The Trimble GeoXH 6000 gathering data at the summit of Bury Ditches (SO 327 838)

For details on the survey of Bury Ditches

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (February 2018)