More information : Area ST 478167. Ham or Hamdon, Hill, an outcrop of buff iron-tinctured upper Lias limestone known as Ham Stone, has been very extensively quarried for building stone from early times until the 20th century. Its greatest period of prosperity was in the 15th to 17th centuries, and it was largely worked out by the end of the 18th century. It was reputedly first worked by the Romans, and though this is highly probable there seems to be little evidence beyond Roman presence on the hill and a Roman coffin in Dorchester Museum said to be made of its stone. The quarrying from Medieval times onward is well attested, both by documents and by the use of the stone in buildings, the procedure being to lease out small individual quarries; 10 such are recorded in Stoke in the 15th century and 14 in Norton in the 16th. Any Roman quarrying is likely to have been restricted, possibly to the areas where Roman remains have been found. Medieval and later quarrying evidently took place all over the hill. (1-4)
Evidence for the quarrying of the Hamstone in the Roman period is provided by the Roman villas in the Ilchester area. Hamstone was used extensively at a number of sites for quoins, jambs and column bases (5). The use of Ham Hill as a source of building stone has been discussed by Jope (6) and the distribution of stone from Ham in medieval buildings within a 25km radius of the hill has been documented by Gerrard (7). In the VCH (see ref (4) above) Dunning has traced the history of the industry on Ham Hill for Montacute and Stoke sub Hamdon parishes. The earliest documentary references to quarrying relate to Stoke sub Hamdon parish, however, by the early 17th century the Norton sub Hamdon part of the hill was probably the principal focus. Individual pits appear to have been quite small; the pits in Montacute parish at the end of the 17th century, for example, were each about 5.5m square. There was a short lived revival in the industry during the second half of the 19th century resulting in some 200 men being employed. At this time steam power was being used on the hill in both the procurement and processing of the stone with tramways providing transport. Quarrying continued, albit at a much reduced level, during the 20th century.
The remains of the quarry industry are extensive on Ham Hill with two quarries still in operation. The one near the end of the spur at the north-west end of the hill is re-working dumps from earlier quarrying while the one on the south-west part of the hill is removing live stone. To date some 33ha of the hilltop has been quarried - this represents 37.5% of the area enclosed by the hillfort defences. Apart from some quarrying on the eastern part of the hill (near Batemoor Barn) and a small quarry on the south at ST 48501610, most of the quarrying (30.5ha) is concentrated on the western part of the hill and spur and is the subject of this account.
The industry has created a landscape of worked-out quarry pits and irregular mounds produced by the dumping of overburden and waste. The remains are intersected by a network of tracks and paths. The pits tend now to have irregular outlines with the actual quarried faces still uisible in a number of places. A few faces are covered in oblique, narrow grooves related to the stone cutting process. Drill holes are visible in the floor of a worked-out quarry south of the Prince of Wales public house at about ST 47901674; the stone blocks in its vicinity have also been drill-split. The turf-covered dumps are generally substantial and have flattish tops. On the spur the extensive and featureless depression in area ST 47771716 was created by the removal of 40,000 tons of quarry waste for the Ilchester bypass in the mid 1970s.
The OS first edition 1:2500 map of 1887 shows the extent of the quarrying during the mini boom in the late 19th century. This map is invaluable because individual quarries together with cranes and ancillary buildings were depicted together with a tramway associated with a large area of quarrying on the boundary between Norton sub Hamdon and Montacute parishes. By the second edition OS map of 1903 most of the quarries had been abandoned and the tramway shown on the 1887 map had been replaced by one located just beyond the eastern edge of the quarrying at the south. By this date the quarry at the end of the spur (at the north-west end of the hill) also possessed a tramway and two cranes. A comparison between what is still extant and these maps indicates that much of the what survives is of 19th or 20th century origin.
The site of the tramway shown on the 1887 map survives as a cutting centred ST 48091630. The base of the easternmost crane, depicted on the 1903 map, associated with the quarry at the end of the spur, also survives. It is located at about ST 47801730 and consists of a squared block of Hamstone, 1.1m by 1.0m across and 0.32m thick. A slight rectangular recess, which must relate to the super structure, is visible at the centre of its upper face; it measures 0.29m by 0.2m across and contains a square central hole, 0.1m across and 0.05m deep. A similar Hamstone crane base is also visible on the main part of the hill at ST 48111677. The remains of two or three former quarry buildings, not shown on the OS maps, are also visible together with a limekiln (ST 41 NE 111). One of the buildings is represented by an oblique groove (roof line) and beam slots cut into a rock face in the worked-out quarry south of the Prince of Wales public house. Another, in ruinous condition at ST 48151642, is built against a quarry face; it has dry stone walls and measures internally 1.7m by about 3.3m. A short length of walling at ST 48021673 is either the remnants of a third building or a wall built to retain quarry spoil (8). (9)
Documented. (10) |