No new road at the Air Balloon?

C-H-M notices a bit of a brouhaha about the A417 at the Air Balloon reported here in 'This is Gloucestershire' Some of the comments are reassuringly parochial ...

Update: the pressure group chaired by Mike Cuttell gives up in frustration at the behaviour of the Minister of Transport and the Highways Agency ...

The valley looking down from Birdlip

Another postcard, this time postmarked 1933, taken from Birdlip, looking across towards Crickley, before the road was widened and in the days when the lower slopes were not as well covered by the forest as they are now.

Crickley Hill & Ullenwood Camp map

A section from a 1970s Ramblers' map of the Birdlip area showing Crickley Hill, Ullenwood, Birdlip etc. The detail at Ullenwood looks not quite familiar, if you click on the image and enlarge it, as the building layouts definitely are different on this from when the diggers were all in residence.

An unusual view of the approach to the hill

This postcard with Crickley in the far distance and Barrow Wake/Birdlip in the middle distance must have been taken by the side of of the road that is now the A417 looking north west. One suspects that this may be a fairly old card as well looking at the nature of the road surface.

Update: I'd forgotten - sorry, Kate, - when I posted this, that this card was one which Kate Dumycz sent me: she reminds me that, when she sent it to me some months ago, she kindly transcribed the message: "Dearest Nellie, I am just cycling over a very high hill, 11:15am and it is hot, I am compelled to sit down, wouldn't it be glorious at Aberystwyth. I expect you wish you had your holiday now it is a glorious change from {illegible}: I think of going to Chepstow and Tintern Abbey tomorrow & Symonds Yat Thurs. love Harry". Kate says: "After climbing Crickley Hill more times than I can recall, I can appreciate Harry's sentiments in being compelled to have a sit down!"

Savage 1988: 9. A barbarian antiquity

Only a fortnight left now, before the reunion. Thank you to Richard Savage and Crickley Hill Trust for the permission to reproduce the abstracts from Richard's 1988 booklet.

"9 A Barbarian Antiquity

The Roman period, c. AD50 - 400

For 12 km the Roman Road from Cirencester to the Severn Crossing at Gloucester - the Ermin Way - heads straight for Crickley Hill. Only 4 km short of the hill it turns aside to Birdlip. The fact is hard to interpret but suggests that Crickley played some part, however briefly, in the Roman perception of the region. On present evidence the hill had been unoccupied for at least four centuries, but its wall was still standing, and it would have offered an easy reference point to surveyors who may, in any case, have been rationalising the line of an existing native trackway.

Crickley Hill does not seem to have been inhabited during the Roman period, though there was a small villa a kilometre to the north, at Dryhill, whose farming must have included it. Neither now nor at any time was the interior of the hillfort ploughed. Its use must have been confined to rough grazing. But its landscape was well occupied from Dryhill to Birdlip, where the main road from Cirencester to Gloucester crossed the scarp edge, and stray finds of Roman material on the hill confirm that it was visited from time to time.

The post-Roman village circa AD 420 to 500.

Soon after AD 400, with the withdrawal of Roman administration from Britain, its social and economic order began a slow decline into turbulence. The last permanent settlement on Crickley Hill was occupied at some time during the next century. It was a village in two parts. To the east, sheltering immediately behind the south end of the old Iron Age wall and built partly on the rubble of its collapse, huddled a group of small sub-rectangular houses each about 4 m long, with central hearths, built probably of turf and thatched with barley straw. A narrow entrance to it was partially cleared through the Iron Age stonework and protected with a wooden gateway. To the west, in a palisaded enclosure on the level shelf above the tip of the promontory, stood larger buildings 7 m by 8 m, kept much cleaner, with a granary. The finds suggest that the two groups of buildings are contemporary. It is likely enough that the western buildings housed the leaders - local chieftains - and the eastern the led. Both parts of the village were burnt, rebuilt, though not on the same plans, and finally burnt again.

Stratified among the eastern group of buildings was a military belt buckle, of a type made about the first decade of the fifth century AD but still in use two or three generations later.

[Photo: the military belt-buckle of the early fifth century AD from the post-Roman village. Length 65 mm]

We do not know why Crickley Hill and many other hill-forts were reoccupied in the fifth century AD because we have little certain knowledge of the period as a whole. We cannot suppose that administrative collapse could take place in a sophisticated industrial economy without causing fundamental changes in production and distribution and the power structure. These will have been complex and the results often localised. But the evidence does not suggest that the last villagers on Crickley Hill were a huddle of refugees cornered in a desperate resistance. They seem to have been an orderly, socially stratified group taking any moderate precautions, and successfully adapting themselves to the new lifestyle of the fifth century. They are abrupt end is more likely to be the result of internal discord among Britons than the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon conquerors at the end of the sixth century.

[Illustration: post-Roman village: Chieftain's house and granary in the western part. C. Clark]"

The Royal George at Birdlip

Another eBay acquisition, this time a view of Birdlip focusing mainly upon the Royal George. From the horse and cart and the state of the road one would guess that this picture was taken before the First World War. The front of the hotel has changed remarkably little in the last hundred years, as may be seen from the following link. Quite a number of those attending the reunion will be staying in the Royal George in three weeks' time...

More from Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory

Thanks to Philip Dixon and the Crickley Hill Trust for permission to reproduce the following abstract from " Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory", published in 1977:

"Later Developments

After the destruction of Crickley’s second hillfort, perhaps about 500 BC, the site was again abandoned.  A few pieces of metalwork were found in the turf (Iron Age pins, a brooch, Roman sandal nails, and Anglo-Saxon dress ornaments) imply no more than transient visitors, and no permanent buildings have been recognized later than those of the last hillfort period.  No signs of planning have been noticed and the hill was presumably used only for grazing.  The burnt wooden buildings would soon have disappeared, but parts of the ramparts stood until the 3^rd or 4^th century AD, in their final collapse burying a small pig which was apparently rooting in the rubbish of the ruined entrance passage.

Changes meanwhile occurred in the settlements of Gloucestershire.  A new group of hill forts was built to the north, on Bredon Hill and the adjacent Cotswolds slopes.  No radiocarbon dates are available, but their pottery belongs to the 4^th and 3^rd century and later, and closely resembles the material from the forts of the Malverns and Herefordshire: the influences in the area seem to have shifted from east to west.  A discovery of great significance has recently been made at Beckford, near Bredon, where rescue excavations, in advance of gravel workings, have exposed parts of the large lowland settlement, whose houses were set within a regular grid of rectangular boundary ditches.  The arrangement resembles that at Dragonby, Lincs., and is the first clear occurrence of an eastern flat settlement in the West, an area otherwise dominated by hillforts.  The Beckford pottery is identical to that from the tiny fort at Conderton nearby, which can thus plausibly be seen as the citadel of the otherwise unfortified village.  No open settlement is yet known which might have been associated with the Crickley Hill fort.

Farther south, the small hill fort at Painswick Beacon, with its multiple lines of banks and ditches, is of a type associated with the latest Iron Age, but no dates are available for the site.  During the first century AD and new centre of settlement was formed at Bagendon, near Cirencester, a tribal capital 200 acres in extent within its banks, the predecessor of the Roman town.  An important family must have lived near Crickley at this period, for road making between Crickley and Birdlip in 1879 revealed a small cemetery of the early 1^st century AD, whose rich grave goods are now displayed in Gloucester Museum.  No contemporary settlement site has been uncovered, and Crickley itself remained deserted until the foundation in the 2^nd century AD of the small Roman farm whose branch boundaries may be traced within the wood to the east of the hillfort.

Further Reading

E. M. Clifford Bagendon (1961)

C.  Green 'The Birdlip Early Iron Age Burials', Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society XV (1949)

W.  Britnell 'Beckford',  Current Archaeology 45 (1974)

J.  Dyer Southern England: an archaeological guide (1973).  An excellent gazetteer and general guide"

Mist over Birdlip

Professor Dixon sends in this glorious shot of the mist hanging over Birdlip: not sure I've ever seen the mist there before but it is very beautiful.  I don't suppose it happened very much during the excavation season.

Crickley Hill on Easter Day 2009

 

 

 

The hill at about half past one today: Crickley Hill Man was utterly unable to resist a brief diversion at lunchtime on his way back to London from Herefordshire.  Top: the view towards Barrow Wake and Birdlip along the line of the crest of the rampart, taken from the point where the fence-line divides the National Trust land from the County Council land. Middle: with the eastern end of the Long Mound at my feet, looking back towards the Iron Age entrance with the Neolithic bank in the foreground. Bottom: looking down the line of the Neolithic bank across towards Barrow Wake and Birdlip.  One could only see fifteen miles or so with any clarity today as there was quite a bit of mist and rain haze about.  Bracing breeze on the top but a few hardy souls were having a picnic. 

View from the Cotswold Hills near Birdlip, Gloucestershire

This watercolour by V A Wright shows a perspective that will be familiar to Crickley diggers from standing on the top of the hill and looking north. This painting complements the one that was posted here in January. The first one must have been painted from a spot to the east of the trees on the right.  This series, as Dr Ferris remarked on a recent stay at the Albergo Parker "is not exactly great art, but it has a certain charm."  True of many of us, Dr Ferris, true of many of us.

Savage 1988: Hunters, Gatherers & the Messily Thick Age ..

Thank you as usual to Richard Savage and the Crickley Hill Trust for permission to reproduce extracts from his 1988 booklet, "Village, Fortress, Shrine, Crickley Hill, Gloucestershire 3500BC to AD500".  This section covers the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic: until c.  4000 BC.   

Readers will have noticed that I post transcribed text as well as the scanned image of the page. That way readers can see Richard's beautiful pictures and search engines can find the text which gets you there in the first place. Crickley Hill Man is better than a two-fingers-, but by no means a touch-typist.  So to help me along with large swathes of text, I often use the excellent DragonDictate NaturallySpeaking software which types as you speak. It's pretty good and has come on leaps and bounds since I first saw dictation software many years ago, but does occasionally produce an entertaining typo.  In today's piece it offered "messily thick" instead of "mesolithic".  I'm sure you'll agree that it's a much better name for the middle stone age.  But for fear of a class action from ambulance-chasing lawyers acting for the denizens of the Mesolithic and their descendants I've reluctantly corrected the error.  I think I'd be able to make out a defence on the messy part but might be in trouble on the thick bit.  Maybe I spend too much time with lawyers.  

"The earliest human visitors to Britain - then still attached to northwestern Europe - were palaeolithic ("old stone age") groups, moving with their prey, who hunted and gathered their food here intermittently for at least a quarter of a million years.  We know of no traces of them on Crickley Hill itself, but their flint tools have been found on the Vale just below, at Great Witcombe, Brockworth and in the gravels of Barnwood. These include almost all the tools of this kind known from Gloucestershire outside the upper Thames Valley.  

Their successors, Mesolithic ("middle stone age") fishermen and hunters of deer, birds and the smaller forest animals, were perhaps the first communities to clear woodland by burning it to extend the grazing open to their prey, and may have done so in Gloucestershire, anticipating the labour of the farmers who followed them.  During that time (c.  8000 to 4000 BC) Britain was gradually separated from the Continent and approached its present outline as the ice sheets of the last ice age melted and the sea level rose.  On the upland within 3 km south and east of Crickley Hill four scatters of their flint tools are known: cores, scrapers (probably for cleaning the flesh from hides), heavier cutting tools, and the very small "microliths", intended for mounting as the points and blades of composite tools and weapons.  Only one is known from the Vale, at Barnwood, but it is difficult to believe that these people were confined to the uplands; it is likely that more finds will be made. [Illustration: Mesolithic flint tools: tranchet axe from Barnwood (length 89mm), and microliths from near Birdlip (lengths 31mm, 26mm, and 28mm) R Fitzpatrick]"

Witts's Ancient Camps - Crickley Camp

An extract from the Archaeological Handbook of the County of Gloucester by George Witts published by G. Norman, Clarence Street Cheltenham, n.d. (1883):

"No. 34. — Crickley Hill Camp.

This lies one mile north of the village of Birdlip, in the parish of Cubberley, and four miles south of Cheltenham. It is protected by a mound and ditch running across the projecting height in a slightly curved line, with a second mound and ditch running parallel to the main one, and 100 yards from it. The remaining three sides of the camp are protected by the precipitous nature of the hill. The area defended is about nine acres, and the earthworks still remaining show what an important position it must have been. On the high ground to the east of the camp the defences are much stronger than they are on the lower ground as they approach the escarpment. Unlike most other camps in the county, this has a perfect entrance, defended by an advanced bank and ditch; and in the immediate neighbourhood are six round barrows and one fine long barrow. 

See "Archaeologia," vol. XIX, p170, also "Proceedings Cott. Nat. Field Club," vol. VI, p210 and also "Transactions Bristol and Glou. Archae. Soc.," 1879-80, p206."

How did 'The Air Balloon' get its name?

In the 1973 Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, A.P. Woolrich is mildly dismissive here in a footnote (to his paper on Joshua Gilpin's 1796-97 diary) that reads: "The Air Balloon at Crickley Hill was called the New Inn in 1782. (Glos R.O. D/CE 88(11). Contrary to popular opinion it does not commemorate a local balloon ascent (BSS)."

Well, that told us. I was fosseting about in the bowels of the internet and came across a website selling, for heaven's sake - but good luck to them - digital photographs of pub signs, amongst which are various signs that have, over the years, graced the 'Air Balloon'. This website states that the "pub's name commemorates the famous balloon flight by Edward Jenner which ended close to the building on 2nd September 1784."

I had visions of the good doctor himself whizzing about in the air: I had no recollection of him knocking spots off the brothers Montgolfier so I continued my researches. Before I started, should I perhaps have vaccinated myself against that scourge of the modern age, internet hyperbole?

My next stop was the Jenner Museum housed in his former house which has the following:
"Edward Jenner's lifelong friend, the physician Caleb Hillier Parry, probably carried out the first flight of an unmanned balloon in the West Country. He launched a hydrogen balloon from the Crescent in Bath on 10th January 1784. It was 17ft in diameter and 8.5ft high, made of varnished silk. It flew 19 miles, landing just west of Wells. Determined to try the experiment for himself, Edward Jenner wrote to Parry requesting a length of silk and urging him to join him in Berkeley. Jenner launched his hydrogen balloon from the courtyard of Berkeley Castle at 2pm on 2nd September 1784. It flew 10 miles north eastwards, landing in a field at Kingscote, where, the Gloucester Journal reported, it terrified the reapers so much that for some time they could not be persuaded to approach it! The balloon was re-launched and drifted north along the line of the hills for a further 14 miles. Its journey ended a few miles east of Gloucester at the beauty spot known as Birdlip. The local inn, known since the 1820s as the Balloon Inn and now called the Air Balloon Inn, may well commemorate this exciting event."

There is no source cited for this version of events, but we know from Joshua Gilpin's diary that the inn had changed its name from the New Inn in 1782 to the Balloon by 1796-7, so the 1820s reference at least is not quite on the mark. The Jenner Museum version seems to have been liberally replicated across the web by many parties.

Perhaps the most balanced, and certainly the best, light is shed by a fascinating and well researched article on the history of ballooning by John Penny, of the Fishponds Local History Society. The part of his article illuminating what is known about the 'Air Balloon' is this passage relating to developments in 1784:

"Messrs. Sharpnell and Dyer it appears proposed to launch a balloon from Stinchcombe Hill at midday on August 3rd, and as details of the event had been carried in the "Gloucester Journal" (31) it was not surprising that a large crowd had gathered in anticipation. They were, however, to be disappointed and as "Felix Farley's Bristol Journal" subsequently reported (32) "after waiting many hours in anticipation behold! nothing but a child's paper kite was exhibited. After some altercation with the company assembled, the artists thought proper to take to their heels, and so escape the lashes of the spectators whips". The exact identity of Sharpnell and Dyer is not known, but it is possible that one of them was William F.Shrapnell, surgeon to the South Gloucestershire Militia who was a close friend of the famous Edward Jenner M.D. L.L.D. F.R.S. of Berkeley (1749 - 1823), remembered with affection the world over for his discovery of vaccination as a preventative of smallpox (33).

Nevertheless, this fiasco at Dursley did nothing to dampen enthusiasm for ballooning in the southern part of Gloucestershire, for the very next month Dr.Jenner himself carried out his first aeronautical experiment, although he was careful to keep the details from the public, fearing the result of another local failure. Jenner had also been a close friend of Dr.Caleb Parry since boyhood days, when they had both attended the Rev.Dr.Washbourne's school at Cirencester (34), so it was not surprising that he should try to emulate his friend's achievements, and Parry, it seems, was happy to provide details of balloon construction. Jenner subsequently wrote to him stating, "your directions respecting the Balloon are so clear and explicit, 'tis impossible for me to blunder; but to make it quite a certainty, I intend first to fill it and see if it will float in the Castle-Hall, before the public exhibition. Should it prove unwilling to mount and turn shy before a large assembly, don't you think I may make my escape under the cover of three or four dozen Squibs and Crackers?" (35).

Caution, it appears, prevailed for on Thursday September 2nd 1784, and in private, he finally launched his hydrogen filled balloon from the Inner Court of Berkeley Castle. It was released at two o'clock in the afternoon, and later that day was seen to descend into a meadow at Symond's Hall only a short distance from Kingscote Park, at that time the residence of Anthony Kingscote Esq., father of three most eligible daughters. The balloon's arrival in the parish caused a great deal of excitement and, "the reapers were so much terrified that they could not for some time be prevailed to approached it" (36).

Jenner's ride over to retrieve his little aerostat resulted in his first meeting with Catherine Kingscote, a lady he subsequently married on March 6th, 1788, so there must have been little difficulty in persuading him to re-launch the balloon from Kingscote Park, for the benefit of the family and their friends. This was soon accomplished and in the best romantic traditions the balloon rose into the air carrying a poem, specially written by Jenner's friend Edward Gardner, and dedicated to Catherine, his new found love (37). No details have come to light regarding the balloon's fate, but it is just possible that it came to earth a little over 20 miles away on high ground near Birdlip Hill, where there still exists a public house bearing the title "Air Balloon Inn".

NOTES:
31) Gloucester Journal 2/8/1784 p3d.
32) Felix Farley's Bristol Journal 14/8/1784 p3d.
33) Fisk, Dorothy, "Doctor Jenner of Berkeley", Heinemann, London, 1959, p110.
34) Anon, "Lives of the British Physicians", Murray's Family Library, 1830, p275.
35) and Miller, Genevieve (ed), "Letters of Edward Jenner", John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, p3.
36) Gloucester Journal 6/9/1784 p3c; Fisk, pp 76-78.
37) Baron, John M.D. F.R.S., "The Life of Edward Jenner MD LLD FRS", Henry Colburn, London, 1827, p72."

So there we have it. The Jenner Museum suggests a relaunch on the same day, that ended up at Birdlip, which if it happened, eluded John Penny's researches. John Penny's account appears more likely, not least because the paraphernalia required to get the balloon in the air again would have had to be transported to Symond's Hall near Kingscote, or the balloon would have had to be brought back to Berkeley Castle. Since the first flight only started at 2 p.m. I think the Jenner Museum version begins to look implausible, if not impossible. Perhaps further research is required. I'd start with a gander at the 6th September 1784 edition of the Gloucester Journal...

Would it be too hair-splitting to suggest that John Penny's conclusion can be reconciled to A.P. Woolrich's 1973 footnote to Gilpin by the notion that the pub was named not after an ascent, but a descent, of an air balloon? I must ask Dr Ferris to share some cider with me as we mull over the possibilities.

Excavations on Leckhampton Hill 1925

Thanks are due to the Secretary of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for permission to reproduce extracts from the BGAS's Transactions.  Here a couple of intriguing items from 1925.

"Less than a mile away are three barrows, one a particularly fine long barrow of the Neolithic Age, at "the Crippets", two round barrows near the inn known as the "Air Balloon", and by the side of the road to Birdlip, was found a beautiful mirror enamelled in colours, at  a burial place of the Iron Age, one of the most striking specimens ever discovered of that period, now in Gloucester Museum.  Hence there was sufficient reason to welcome the opportunity of exploring and dating the tumulus and the adjoining camp.  

A particularly interesting feature of the core of Leckhampton Camp is the appearance of the action of fire or intense hear, which has reddened the yellow oolite rock in a remarkable way.  This peculiarity is not confined to Leckhampton Camp - for it is very noticeable at Crickley Camp - two miles away.  

Thomas Lloyd Baker, in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries, London in 1818, refers to this fact for which there is no adequate explanation."

An introduction to the watercolours of V. A. Wright

Dr Ferris has now turned me into a postcard collector: a little judicious hunting around on eBay after Iain's tipoff the other day has resulted in a steady series of hesitant rattlings at the letterbox, rustlings on the way through, followed by gentle cloppings onto the hallway tiles at the Albergo Parker.  Postcards of Gloucestershire are now arriving from as far away as Malaga.  

It is clear from my brief researches and purchases that there was a watercolourist - probably before the Second World War from the font style and card design - called V. A. Wright (sex unknown to me as yet) whose easel was set up fairly regularly round Crickley, Barrow Wake & Birdlip.  Crickley aficionados will recognise the slightly different perspective offered from Birdlip.

A 19th century description of Crickley

My thanks to the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for permission to reproduce extracts from their transactions. Here from 1896-97:

"On their right a mile distant, was Crickley Hill Camp, formed by a mound and ditch running across the projecting height in a slightly curved line, with a second mound and ditch running parallel to it 100 yards off. The three other sides of the defence were formed by the natural slope of the hill, scarped artificially.  The defended area was about nine acres. The entrance remains in a perfect condition and is defended by a bank and ditch.  In the immediate neighbourhood there are six round barrows and one long barrow" (This description of the camp is drawn from Mr. Witts' Archaeological Handbook of Gloucestershire.)

On some ancient roads on the Cotswolds ...

My thanks again to the Secretary of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, John Loosley, for permission to reproduce this extract from the BGAS Transactions. Interesting comments from 1896-97 from John Sawyer on the road from Birdlip via Crickley and the Greenway to Leckhampton and Norbury. "Crickley Hill ... appears to have been a British village". Full paper is here.

A late 18th century reference to the Air Balloon

The Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society has kindly granted permission for extracts from its Transactions to be posted on the Crickley blog: above, a reference to the Balloon Inn by Joshua Gilpin walking from Cheltenham to Birdlip in 1796-7. Gilpin was an American papermaker who toured Britain and the Continent between 1795 and 1801. The full article, from which the piece above is an extract, appears here. The searchable General Index of the Transactions of BGAS is here.

A late 17th century Act to repair the road: longest sentence ever?

The Parliamentary draftsman must have been being paid by the yard. Below, after the references is the first sentence alone of an Act concerned with keeping the road from Gloucester to Crickley maintained.

'William III, 1697-8: An Act for repairing the Highways from the Towne of Birdlipp and the Top of Crickley Hill in the County of Gloucester to the City of Gloucester. [Chapter XVIII. Rot. Parl.9 Gul. III.p.3.n.7.]'

Reasons for passing this Act

Quarter Sessions to appoint a Surveyor of the Roads yearly; Notice to Persons appointed.; Surveyors to meet to survey ruinous Places, and take Order for repairing the same; and certify to Quarter Sessions, who are to make Order thereon; Surveyors to require Carts, &c. to work in such Places; Surveyors to pay for working beyond limited Time; Two Justices may settle Rate of Payment.

Whereas the Highway between Birdlipp and the said Top of Crickley Hill in the County. Gloucester and the City of Gloucester being part of the ancient Highway and Post Road leading from the Citty of London to Gloucester by reason of the great and many Loads that are weekly drawne through the same are become very ruinous and almost impassable for att least Five Miles in length insomuch that itt is become dangerous to all Persons that passe that way and for that the ordinary course appointed by the Laws and Statutes of this Realme is not sufficient for the effectual repairing and amending the same neither are the Inhabitants of the several Parishes in which the said ruinous Places in the said High-way and Roads doe lye of ability to repaire the same without some other Provision be made for the repairing thereof May it please Your Majesty that it may be enacted and be it enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritiual & Temporal and Co[m]mons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That for the surveying ordering repairing and keeping in Repaire the said several ruinous places in the said Road the Justices of the Peace att the Quarter Sessions to be holden for the said County or any Five of them next after the First Day of May One thousand six hundred ninety eight shall and may then and so from time to time in every Yeare nominate and appoint a convenient number of sufficient and able Persons residing & inhabiting in the Parishes or Places adjoining to the respective ruinous High-way and Road or any Part thereof so to be amended as aforesaid to be the several and respective Surveyors of the respective Places aforesaid for the Yeare from thence next ensuing and that the said Justices shall cause Notice to be given to the several Surveyors so chosen in Writing of their said Choice which said Surveyors and every of them having no lawfull impedim[en]t to be allowed by the said Justices by whom they shall be chosen in manner aforesaid or any Two of them within one Week next after such Notice to him or them given of their Election shall and are hereby required respectively to meet in some convenient place within their several and respective Divisions for the which they are respectively appointed Surveyors to the Intent to Review and Survey the said respective ruinous places and consider the defects thereof and the best Method and Means that can be used for the repairing the same & make their respective Certificates thereof to the Justices of the Peace att the next Quarter Sessions to be held for the said County who thereupon shall and may make such Order & Orders in and about the same as to them shall seem good which said Order or Orders so to be made shall be by the said respective Surveyors and all other Persons concerned in putting this Act in Execution duely observed & performed and the said respective Surveyors are hereby impowered to appoint and require such Carts and Persons who are within the said adjacent Parishes from time to time to come and work in the said respective Places as they shall think needfull for which the said respective Surveyors shall pay unto such Labourers and to the Owners of such Teams Carts and Wains according to the usual Rate of the Countrey in case they [shall (fn. 1) ] be required so to work beyond the times limitted by the Statutes now in force wherein if any Difference happen the same to be settled by Two or more of the next Justices of the Peace which is to be conclusive to all Parties.

So that's the first sentence. It goes on: William III, 1697-8 which I would only recommend if you're suffering from insomnia...

Quick guide to all those Cotswold hills

Tewkesbury Borough Council website About Tewkesbury has collated this rather useful guide:

Birdlip Hill
Birdlip Hill is the way the Romans climbed the escarpment from Glevum (Gloucester) on their way to Corinium (Cirencester). Its steep and wooded route now links the Witcombes with Birdlip on the brow of the hill. Just to the north of the road as it makes its final ascent is "The Peak", reached up a bridleway and forming part of the Cotswold Way National Trail. This is a wonderful lofty viewpoint at the apex of the sharp spur dividing the Witcombe valley from Barrow Wake to the north. The wood on the top of the spur, behind the viewpoint stands on an iron age hillfort the boundary bank of which can be seen at the eastern end.

Cleeve Hill
Cleeve Hill's summit, Cleeve Cloud, at 1083 ft (330 metres) is the highest point on the great Jurassic escarpment stretching from Dorset to the North Sea coast. This high point lies at the back of Cleeve Common, important for many reasons including its archaeology, flora, geology and landforms. In terms of recreation it is used by walkers, rock climbers, riders (under licence) and not least by golfers. The common is managed by the Board of Conservators. Interpretation boards have been installed by the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust in order to explain some of the unique geology of the common. These can be reached from the public car park near the golf club. Most of the common is also identified as a site of special scientific interest because of both its geological and botanical importance.

Chosen Hill
Chosen Hill lies to the north east of Gloucester on the borders of Churchdown and Hucclecote, it is an outlier of the Cotswold escarpment. Used by ancient inhabitants as the site for a hillfort it now provides the site for a number of reservoirs and Churchdown Parish Church, this hilltop site for a mediaeval church is unusual locally.

Coopers Hill
In the Parish of Brockworth, this hill is well known for the ancient annual cheese rolling ceremony in which brave people race down a precipitous slope at the top of the Cotswold escarpment in pursuit of Double Gloucester cheeses. The top of the hill is also part of the Cotswold Commons and Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation, a site of European Nature Conservation Importance.

Crickley Hill
Crickley Hill is the site of one of the many ancient hillforts which crown many of the hills in the local area, this one is unusual for the extensive archaeological excavations carried out here over many years. The site, owned by the National Trust, is managed as a Country Park by the County Council and offers magnificent views across the vale and along the escarpment. In common with some of the other hills it is both scheduled as an ancient monument and is also identified as a site of special scientific interest for its limestone grassland and flora.

Dumbleton Hill, Oxenton Hill and Langley Hill
These are all Cotswold outliers, whilst Nottingham Hill above Gotherington and Woodmancote will eventually become one as the escarpment continues to weather away (a process which will probably take many hundreds of thousands of years).

Lassington Hill
This hill in the south west of the Borough at Highnam, and there are fine views of the Leadon Valley to the north and the Severn Vale to the east from here.

Leckhampton Hill
Close to the southern fringe of Cheltenham the Cotswold Escarpment rises steeply to the remains of old limestone quarries and the ruins of early C20th limekilns. The routes of the tramway inclines can still be followed down into Leckhampton road to the west of the main road up the hill. The tramways were formerly linked to Gloucester Docks by the Cheltenham Gloucester Tramroad in the early - mid C19th. One particularly enigmatic feature on the hill is the Devil's Chimney, a substantial pillar of stone left standing next to one of the upper inclines, nothing is known as to who left it there or why. Part of the hill is scheduled as an ancient monument (an ancient hillfort) and much of it is also identified as a site of special scientific interest for its limestone grassland and flora.

Sandhurst Hill / Norton Hill
These are part of the Triassic geology of the River Severn, their make-up is exposed at Wainlodes Cliff geological site of special scientific interest where the Severn is wearing the hill away.