Picture: Mariateresa Bucciante

Described as one of the “most spectacular wildlife spots in Bristol” Troopers Hill in St George overlooks the River Avon and the city of Bristol beyond.

Dominated by its distinctive crooked chimney the hillside has been quarried and mined for hundreds of years. This industrial past has given shape to its rocky crags, spoil heaps and gullies and it is now a haven for reptiles, deer and rare plants.

1. With a commanding view of the city it is no surprise that Troopers Hill has a long military association. During the Civil War the Parliamentary army, under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, camped on Troopers Hill prior the siege of Bristol in 1645.

2. But was Troopers Hill named after the troops? Possibly not – the land was once owned and worked by the Truebody family and it was known as Truebody’s Hill. Both Troopers Hill and Truebody’s Hill were both used through much of the 19th century, with Troopers Hill becoming the accepted name by the end of the century, possibly because of its use on the Ordnance Survey map.

3. It has its own ghosts – a whole troop of them! According to local legend the soldiers who camped on Troopers Hill during the Civil War can still be heard from time to time.

4. It has an unlikely connection with the slave trade. Copper ore was brought to the area from Cornwall and north Devon and coal was sourced locally. The copper produced was manufactured into brass and many of the brass products were exported to Africa to be bartered for slaves as part of the ‘triangular trade’.

5. The famous chimney was built in the 1790s for one of the copper smelting works at the bottom of the hill.

6. Troopers Hill has been used as a film location for Skins,’The Sparticle Mystery’ and the Oscar-nominated short film ‘Wish 143’.

7. Bristol City Council bought the 21 acres of hillside in 1956 for the princely sum of £600.  In the same year it also acquired the adjacent allotment and rough pasture land. Some of this area and part of the hill were used to tip building rubble, dug up from Old Market as the underpass was built in the 1960s and 70s, and is now covered in woodland.

8. Troopers Hill is 300 million years old! The rock underlying Troopers Hill was formed in the Carboniferous Period and the pennant sandstones comes from sands and fine gravels that were later washed down by rivers to cover the whole area.

9. Hidden deep in the woods on private land near Troopers Hill is an 18th-century Bath House. It dates from the mid 1700s and is thought to have been built by William King. It was the most important feature of a terraced garden that was attached to a house built next to his glass bottle furnace in Crews Hole.

10. The hill is an important breeding ground for several rare species of mining bees – the red and black Andrena Integra and the endangered Nomada Guttulata, which was discovered on the hill in 2000 and acts like a cuckoo by laying its eggs in other bees’ holes.

11. But it’s home to some bigger animals as well. Deer, foxes and badgers all live on the hill. Occasionally pigs have been spotted when they have escaped from the smallholding at the bottom of the hill.

12. Troopers Hill is one of the the best places in the city to watch the Bristol Balloon Fiesta.

To find out more about the Friends of Troopers Hill, visit www.troopers-hill.org.uk