The Firs (SO 599 573) - recommended name change from Grendon Green
There has been a recommendation of a Significant
Name Change to a hill that is listed in the Tumps,
with the height of the hill confirmed by a Trimble GeoXH 6000 survey
conducted by Myrddyn Phillips and which took place on the 30th
January 2018 in good dry conditions, with no breeze and clear visibility.
The criterion for the list that this
recommendation affects is:
Tumps – All British hills with 30m or more of drop.
The list was duplicated, compiled and collated by
Mark Jackson and first published in 2009, with the word Tump being an acronym meaning Thirty & Upward Metre
Prominences.
The hill is situated in West Gloucestershire,
Hereford & Worcester and is placed in Region 38 Welsh Borders, Section 38B
with its Parent Hill being Hegdon Hill (SO 585 539). The hill is positioned above the A 44 road
which is to its south, and has the town of Bromyard toward its south-east and
the city of Worcester towards its east.
 |
| The Trimble GeoXH 6000 gathering data from the high point of bounded land known as The Firs |
This hill is listed in the Tumps under the name of Grendon Green, which is a name that is
prominent near the summit of this hill on Ordnance Survey maps. When compiling hill lists authors are prone to use a name that appears nearest to its summit on
contemporary Ordnance Survey maps, without much consideration for its local or
historical confirmation, or whether map placement is appropriate.
 |
| Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map |
With time and inclination place-name data can be improved
either by asking local people or by examining historical documents, through
this form of research the locally known name for the hill or the land where the
summit of the hill is situated can usually be found, and in the case of this
hill it was the local farmer who gave the name of The Firs for the bounded land
where the summit of this hill is situated.
The local farmer is Mary Whitfield Jones who farms from
Batchley which is further down the track to the north-east of where the summit
of this hill is positioned. I met Mary
whilst surveying this hill as she walked up the track from her farm, she was
very enthusiastic and knowledgeable and immediately approached me and said; ‘oh
you’re another one, I had one over a while ago, like buses you are, I expect
you’re looking for the trig pillar, it’s over there buried in the undergrowth,
come with me I’ll show you where it is.’
I thanked her for offering to take me to the trig, but explained my
interest lay in surveying the high point of this hill and also in its name.
 |
| Mary Whitfield Jones |
Once Mary realised I had
little interest in the trig pillar we concentrated on the name of the hill, she
told me that the actual hill had no name, or at least she did not know of one,
I asked about the name of Grendon Green, she explained that this is strictly
applicable to the land at the end of the track where it forms a T-junction with
the A 44 road, and that the end house is named Grendon and that it’s a little disappointing
as there isn’t even a triangle of green to lay claim to the name.
I then asked Mary if the
bounded land where the Trimble was placed had a name, she told me that it is
known as The Firs, by this stage she’d also told me that she had lived at the
farm for 42 years and was born and bred in Herefordshire. I asked about the name of The Firs, Mary
explained that the land between the two grazing fields to the west and the east
once had conifers on it and that’s why it is known as The Firs, she suggested I
should look on the Tithe map (which I do, but mainly for Welsh hills), I then
asked her about the two adjacent fields and she said that the field to the west
is known as The Harps and the field to the east is known as the Front Meadow.
Therefore, as the person who owns the land where
the summit of this hill is situated considers the name of Grendon Green to
apply to a small area of land at the T-junction where the track and the A44
road meet, which is beside the house that is named Grendon, and that the bounded
land where the data produced by surveying with the Trimble GeoXH 6000 was
gathered from is known as The Firs, the recommendation is that the listed name
of this hill in the Tumps is changed
to The Firs. With the caveat that if
higher ground is situated in the adjacent field to the east of the track the listed
name of the hill would then be the Front Meadow.
The full details for the hill are:
Parent Hill: Hegdon
Hill
Recommended Name: The
Firs
Current Listed Name: Grendon
Green
Summit Height: 253.6m
(converted to OSGM15)
OS 1:50,000 map: 149
Summit Grid Reference:
SO 59900 57311
Drop: c 41m
Myrddyn Phillips (March 2018)
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