Wittenham Clumps

Wittenham Clumps is the common name for a pair of wooded chalk hills in the Thames Valley, in the civil parish of Little Wittenham, in the historic county of Berkshire, although since 1974 administered as part of South Oxfordshire district.

The higher of the two, Round Hill, is 390 feet (120 m) above sea-level. The 350 feet (110 m) Castle Hill is about 380 yards (350 m) south-east and was the site of an Iron Age hill fort. A third hill, not normally considered one of The Clumps, is Brightwell Barrow, further to the south-east.

The grassed slopes of The Clumps lead up to summits wooded by the oldest beech tree plantings in England, dating to the 1740s. Standing over 70 metres above their surroundings, the Clumps have a prominent appearance and panoramic views, with the north slopes overlooking villages and towns whose sites mark some of the first settlements of the English. The view from The Clumps was described by the artist Paul Nash, who first saw them in 1911, as "a beautiful legendary country haunted by old gods long forgotten".

The Clumps are the most visited outdoor site in the administrative county of Oxfordshire, attracting over 200,000 visitors a year. A car park was added in 1971, and the extensive network of paths are accessible by foot all year round. A path through the wooded area at the top of Round Hill has enabled access since 2005, after being closed for twenty years. The site and its surroundings are maintained as a Nature Reserve by the Earth Trust.

Strictly speaking, the name Wittenham Clumps refers to the wooded summits of these hills, which are themselves more properly referred to as the Sinodun Hills, the name Sinodun deriving from Celtic, Seno-Dunum, meaning 'Old Fort'. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the name is a scholarly creation, punning on the Latin 'sinus' (bosom). Other lesser-used and more colloquial names for the Clumps include the Berkshire Bubs (since the Clumps were formerly in the county of Berkshire – the boundary was redrawn in 1974) and Mother Dunch's Buttocks (after a local Lady of the Manor named Dunch).

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