Hamdon Hill

A curious superstition (says a Somersetshire correspondent) has come to light in Mid-Somerset. It seems that the labouring classes in that locality, like those of most other rural districts in England, hold or held sacred certain supposed prophecies of “Mother Shipton,” whose topographical knowledge, if we are to believe all that is said of her, must have been little less marvellous than her insight into the future.

Of these prophecies the most widely believed in had reference to the fate of Ham Hill, a large stone quarry in the neighbourhood of Yeovil, and a prominent feature of the landscape for miles around. It was to the effect that at twelve o’clock on the Good Friday of 1879 Ham Hill should suddenly be swallowed up by an earthquake, and that at the same time Yeovil should be visited by a tremendous flood. With such real anxiety was last Friday looked forward to, in consequence, that people actually left the locality with their families and went to stay with their friends in other parts of the county until the dreaded “visitation” should be over; others, whose faith was less robust, nevertheless thought it advisable to remove their pots and pans from the shelves of their cupboards and to stow away their clocks and looking-glasses in places where they were not likely to be shattered by the shock of the earthquake; others, again, suspended gardening operations for a day or two, thinking it mere waste to commit good seed to the earth that was likely to behave so treacherously.

On the morning of Good Friday itself large numbers of people – many of them from a distance – flocked to the spot, or as near to the spot as they dared venture, to await, half incredulous and half in terror, the stroke of twelve and the fulfilment of the prophecy. When, however, the appointed hour had passed, and Ham Hill still stood unabashed, they began to look sheepishly into each other’s faces and to move away. At present in Mid-Somerset Mother Shipton and her prophecies are somewhat “at a discount.”

Those crazy provincials. From the Pall Mall Gazette for April 14th, 1879.

The Somerset HER website describes this as possibly the biggest hillfort in the country! covering the whole top of the hill. And there are finds from Mesolithic to R*man times. So you’d think there’d be room for a few ghosts.

Hamdon Hill is, as some might say, ‘seriously haunted’, with descriptions of ‘bizarre shapes outlined by light’ to those of Roman soldiers walking the hilly ramparts.

... G F Munford [one time editor of the Western Gazette] was an avid collector of supernatural tales ... one of his favourites concerned a local witch whose spirit is still said to haunt the district.

Another startling story tells of ... David G., a retired postal worker [who] was visiting friends in the nearby hamlet of Hamdon Hill. It was a humid afternoon in the summer of 1957 and his first excursion to Somerset. He was driving along the boundary of the hill ...

“There wasn’t another car in sight, and although it was broad daylight I couldn’t help feel that something wasn’t right. I was also feeling tired, but not sleepy. There were lots of people walking towards me. Bit of a surprise. I stopped and turned off the engine. The shock of it was that these people were dressed in armoured uniforms. They looked the spitting image of Roman soldiers, bit like the ones I had seen in ‘The Robe’, which was showing that year in town [at the cinema]. I really thought a film was being shot, until they just kept coming on and walked right through the car and me. Everything turned very cold. Believe me, it took a long time to get started. I arrived to my friends safe and sound. Never said a word, until you brought up the subject of ghosts.”

Mr G. allegedly asked his friend not to share the story with anyone until after his death (which the book says was the year after his experience).
From ‘Haunted Somerset’ by John Garland (2007).

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I so want the nearby knoll of ‘St Michael’s Hill’ (known as Lodegarsburgh in Saxon times) to have prehistoric significance. But if there ever were traces they’ve been destroyed by the overlaying layers of Norman castle. It’s got interesting (and madly complicated) stoney folklore, according to Alan Holt’s ‘Folklore of Somerset’ (1992). A blacksmith dreamed that Jesus told him to dig on the top of the hill. He had to dream it three times before he was convinced. In the hole he found a ‘great stone which miraculously split in two, and in the cleft they saw a great crucifix of glistening black flint. Beneath it was a smaller one, an old bell and an old book.’ Then the Dane Tofig stuck the cross on the back of a cart, drawn by 12 red oxen. The oxen didn’t want to go anywhere except Waltham, where Tofig built his Abbey. He displayed the crucifix and when King Harold turned up it bowed to him.

Giant stones? Flint? Blacksmiths? Red oxen? Crucifixes? Mental.

A writer on Somerset superstition in Cassell’s Family Magazine for November, 1890, says: “The prophecies of Mother Shipton are nowhere more widely believed in than in the county of Somerset. Not long ago a report was in circulation that a great catastrophe had been predicted by this old sage. She had prophesied that Ham Hill, one of the great stone quarries of Somerset, would be swallowed up on Good Friday. This catastrophe was to be the consequence of a tremendous earthquake, which would be felt all over the county. Some of the inhabitants left the neighbourhood to escape the impending evil; others removed their crockery and breakable possessions to prevent their being thrown to the ground; others, again, ceased cultivating their gardens. Great alarm was felt, and Good Friday was looked forward to with universal anxiety. And yet when the day came and went without any disaster at all, even that did little to dispel the faith in Mother Shipton; the calculator had made a blunder about the date, and it was not her fault; and many Somersetshire folk are still waiting, expecting to suffer from the prophesied catastrophe.

The Folk-Lore of Somerset
Edward Vivian; F. W. Mathews
Folklore, Vol. 31, No. 3. (Sep. 30, 1920), pp. 239-249.

Ham Hill has a feature called the ‘Frying Pan’ which was thought to have been a Roman amphitheatre at one time – but it’s really a bit small. According to an informant from Stoke under Ham in 1908, every girl or woman who visits must sit down and slide from top to bottom of the bowl – ‘it’s lucky’. Ruth Tongue adds: “Surely here is a relic of pagan rites such as those embodied in the game of Trundles and others.” Well, maybe and maybe not. And what is this game of Trundles anyway? The word must come from OE trendle = a circle; there are other round Trundles you can visit at ancient sites.

from ‘Somerset Folklore’ by Ruth Tongue, 1965.

An underground passage at least a mile long is said to lead from Montacute House to Ham Hill. Ham Hill is the site of a huge 210-acre hillfort, one of the largest in Britain. Although it is now much damaged by quarrying there are apparently still some very impressive ramparts to be seen.