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Beacon Hill - Devizes

Nearest town: Devizes

Site type: historic site

Access: Public

Church name:

Diocese:

County: Wiltshire

Country: England

Grid ref: ST9981465453

Lost yew site: No

Date visited: 29-Jun-07

Recorded by: Tim Hills

Protection & responsibility: Landowner - SSSI

Yews recorded at this site: Ancient 4m-5m

Notes: This is a designated SSSI site. The yews are found on a section of the old London to Bath road, close to the site of the 1643 Battle of Roundway Down. Access was from from Turnpike Farm (ST983663). The byway also forms part of the old parish boundary between Bromham and Heddington. Further research might establish whether yews at this site were once route markers or parish boundary markers. Another possibility, suggested by Gordon Hancock, is that the old chalk pits adjacent to the road might have been used as burial ground for the hundreds of people killed in the Battle of Roundway Down, and that some of the yews might have been planted as grave markers.