Natural England - Kingley Vale: history

Kingley Vale: history

Man has been living and working at Kingley Vale for thousands of years.

The ‘wildwood’, a dense forest that covered the area after the last ice age (12,000 years ago) began to be cleared by Neolithic (5000-2500 BC) people to make space for grazing animals and crops. Their flint tools can still be found at the reserve.

In 2500 BC the Bronze age burial mounds were constructed on the top of the hill and nearly all the remaining trees were cleared to make way for farming. On the summit of Bow Hill are the tombs of ancient chieftains from tribes that lived here around 1000 BC. These 'barrows' are known locally as the Devil's humps.

A hill fort was constructed on the northern end of Kingley Vale during the Iron age (700BC) which is known today as Goosehill camp. Romans also built a temple on the top of the hill next to one of the main tracks.

In the second world war the area was used by Canadian and British troops training for D-Day. You can still see the bullet holes in some of the yews that were used for target practice.

The ‘Football Field’, in the bottom of the valley, has an interesting history. Without doubt it’s one of the world’s worst pitches, and is covered in ant hills and holes, but it was given its unlikely name by local resistance fighters who were secretly training at the Vale to stave off a possible German invasion.

However, they were forbidden from telling their families about their secret work, so instead of revealing that they were actually learning the dark art of sabotage, they simply said they were off for a game of football!

After the war, Kingley Vale became one of the first NNRs in England, thanks largely to the efforts of Sir Arthur Tansley, the first Chairman of the Nature Conservancy Council. His memorial stone stands at the head of the Vale.