Archive - Friday, 26 March 2004


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Size matters in withering heights row

STORM clouds are gathering over two West Dorset landmarks - in a row about which is the county's highest point.

For years the ancient hill fort site at Pilsdon Pen near Broadwindsor has been regarded as the top spot - recorded as some 909 feet above sea level.

Neighbouring Lewesdon Hill was documented as being 15ft lower and has always been known by locals as the "calf" to Pilsdon's "cow".

But now the National Trust has shocked villagers by claiming that it is actually the other way round.

And this week their figures, putting Pildson Pen a measly 277metres above sea level compared to Lewesdon's towering 279 metres, were confirmed by Ordnance Survey officials.

"Of the two, Lewesdon is definitely highest according to our mapping," said OS spokeswoman Paula Good, after studying their latest charts.

But someone, it seems, must be telling "tall stories".

Confusingly, chairman of Broadwindsor Parish Group Peter Hardwill has a letter from the Ordnance Survey assuring him that Pilsdon Pen is still the highest point.

He wrote to them last June after the National Trust first refuted the claim.

Customer contact executive Nicola Dobbs replied: "We were originally quoting the highest point in Dorset as Bulbarrow Hill (north Dorset) at 899ft. However, you questioned this fact as you believed it to be Pilsdon Pen.

"I referred the matter to our technical team who have agreed that Pilsdon Pen is higher than Bulbarrow Hill. "Therefore we have now amended our database so that the highest point in Dorset now stands as Pilsdon Pen."

Baffled? Coun Hardwill is too.

"I stand amazed at what I hear," he said. "I can't see what has changed.

"If Lewesdon is now taller than Pilsdon then the world must have tipped.

"I have the good fortune to be able to look out on both of them from the window of my house at Blackdown and I have not felt any shakes. The earth has not moved for me!

"There has always been a bit of a ding dong about the two but they have always been called the cow and the calf - the cow being Pilsdon.

"When we got the letter from the National Trust saying it was not the highest point I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"I can't see how anything has changed unless they are saying their measurements are now more accurate. "But if the old technology was wrong then there must be a lot of wrongs up and down the country. I can't see Pilsdon Pen is the only place they got it wrong.

Coun Hardwill, boss of a local building company, added: "I shall go out with my own level and see what I find."

National Trust head warden Robert Rhodes said in the past some maps had shown Pilsdon as the highest point, others Lewesdon. But the latest entry on the OS website confirmed Lewesdon as the winner.