Mountjoy, Durham
Mountjoy or Mount Joy is an escarpment above the valley of the River Wear approximately southeast of the city of Durham, England, rising to a height of slightly over. Its name comes from medieval pilgrims travelling to Durham Cathedral, who would get their first close view of the cathedral after climbing the southern scarp face. Modern pilgrims continue to use this route, and the view from the top of Mountjoy is one of the key viewpoints of the Durham Castle and Cathedral World Heritage Site. The site is also associated with legends of the arrival of St Cuthbert's body in Durham. Archaeology has identified a Bronze Age enclosure, a possible Neolithic or Bronze Age settlement, and Iron Age and Romano-British field systems on Mountjoy.
The hill has a variety of land uses, with academic buildings – including some award-winning and controversial 21st-century designs – on Durham University's Upper Mountjoy and Lower Mountjoy sites on the gentle northern slopes, containing all of the departments in the university's faculty of science and most of the departments in the faculty of social science and health. Two of the university's residential colleges are built on Buck's Hill, on the western side of Mountjoy. The scarp slopes are covered by ancient woodland, while the university's botanic garden, locally listed as a historic park, lies in a valley on the southwest side of the hill. The woodland and the undeveloped eastern part of Mountjoy are part of the Hollingside, Mountjoy and Whinney Hill area of high landscape value and form part of the Durham City Green Belt.
Geography
Mountjoy is described in a 2011 archaeological survey as "a prominent NE-SW escarpment which falls sharply away to the wide floodplain of the River Wear to the south-east, and to the Wear itself, looping around Durham City, only 1 km to the north-west". There is an almost right angle corner in the scarp at the east end of the escarpment, where it turns from running approximately east-northeast along the south side of the escarpment to running north. There is an abandoned service reservoir on the ridge at this point, and a 21st-century service reservoir just to the north of this, with a spot height of 101m on the footpath just northeast of the abandoned reservoir in a Durham University site plan.The bedrock beneath Mountjoy and the surrounding area is the Pennine Middle Coal Measures, composed of sandstone in some areas and of mudstone, siltstone and sandstone in others. The superficial deposits are Devensian glaciofluvial deposits. This separates Mountjoy from the Holocene river terrace deposits of Elvet, north of Stockton Road, and the alluvium of the Wear floodplain.
On the western part of the escarpment, the lower and upper parts are separated by the steep wooded slope of the Little High Wood, considered to probably be ancient woodland and listed as such and as a local wildlife area in the County Durham Local Plan. There is s a more gentle slope on the eastern part of Mountjoy, north of the reservoirs, in a field traditionally known as "Long Rigg" and referred to in the archaeological report as the east field, with a road connecting upper and lower Mountjoy. The Little High Wood and the east field are included in the Durham City Green Belt and the Hollingside, Mountjoy and Whinney Hill area of high landscape value. The Mountjoy ridgeline forms the edge of the "inner setting" for the Durham City World Heritage Site, with most of Mountjoy therefore within the inner setting.
South of the Little High Wood is a plateau with three prominences, two of them in the university's Upper Mountjoy site with heights of for the northern prominence and for the southern prominence, which stands on the ridge just north of the scarp, on the Durham University site plan. The third prominence, just south of Grey College, lies below the contour.
The south and east sides of Mountjoy are bounded by the scarp, falling to the floodplain of the Wear, while to the north the A177 Stockton Road divides Mountjoy from the flatter lands of the Elvet river terrace and from Whinney Hill. The western side of Mountjoy is also defined by the steep slopes of Buck's Hill. The A177 South Road, formerly the Great North Road, runs west of Buck's Hill, passing between Mountjoy and Windmill Hill and across the approximately high Elvet Hill plateau before descending along towards the city. Hollingside Lane comes off this road, climbing the western slope of Mountjoy before turning to follow the ridge leading south from Buck's Hill to Pinnock Hill.
Buck's Hill
The western part of the escarpment is known as Buck's Hill. However, the part of Mountjoy identified by this name varies between sources. The area containing Grey College and Collingwood College is topographically part of Mountjoy but was historically part of Elvet Moor rather than the Mountjoy estate; This division remains reflected in the boundary between the 'academic' zones of Upper and Lower Mountjoy and the 'residential' zones of the hill colleges in the Durham University Estates Masterplan. When Elvet Moor was inclosed, Buck's Hill Plantation and the Buck's Hill Well were set aside in this area. The westernmost prominence, just south of Grey College, is labelled as Buck's Hill on old Ordnance Survey maps. This also matches local descriptions such as "Today, it is Durham University's Grey College and Collingwood College that dominate Bucks Hill". Durham County Council planning maps show this westernmost rise as being Buck's Hill, as do the Durham University site plan and the draft Durham City Conservation Area Management Plan. The Buck's Hill postal address also refers to this area. This area, accessed via Hollingside Lane, was separated from Upper Mountjoy, accessed via a road from Lower Mountjoy, until the construction of a new entrance in 2018–20, and is considered by the university to be part of the 'Hill' area rather than the 'Mountjoy' area.However, modern Ordnance Survey maps label Buck's Hill further east than this. The 106m rise in the southern part of Upper Mountjoy, which was the highest point on the escarpment, is the position shown for "Buck Hill, flint scatter" in the archaeological report. This rise has since been reduced by the construction of a car park at this location in 2018–20. The Ordnance Survey Open Names database places the point position for Buck's Hill slightly south of this, on a high point on the ridge itself.
Mount Joy hill
From the eastern end of the Mountjoy escarpment, the scarp runs northwards and a ridge links the escarpment to a peak marked "Mountjoy" on older Ordnance Survey maps and "Mount Joy" on more recent maps, noted by the archaeological survey as "not to be confused with the site reported here". The peak lies between the 80m and 85m contours. North of this there is a deeper valley separating Mount Joy from Whinney Hill and Maiden Castle, where the A177 Stockton Road climbs the scarp at Shincliffe Peth. Mount Joy is part of the Durham City Conservation Area, referred to as an "important wedge of green space around Mountjoy Farm". Mount Joy is also included in the Durham City Green Belt and the Hollingside, Mountjoy and Whinney Hill area of high landscape value.Great High Wood
The Great High Wood, identified as an ancient woodland by Natural England and in the Durham County Local Plan, stands on the scarp slope south and east of Mountjoy. The scarp meets the floodplain of the river Wear at an elevation of around 45m on the south side, falling to around 40m on the east side. The Great High Wood joins with Maiden Castle Wood on the scarp on the north side of the A177 and with the Hollinside Wood on the scarp south of Mountjoy. The Great High Wood and Hollinside Wood are also included in the Durham City Green Belt and the Hollingside, Mountjoy and Whinney Hill area of high landscape value, as well as being designated local wildlife sites, sites of nature conservation importance and sites of ecological value and being included as local green spaces in the Durham City Neighbourhood Plan.History
Archaeology
Archaeological excavations in 2003–7 in preparation for construction of a new service reservoir discovered a previously unknown prehistoric site consisting of an enclosure estimated to be at least in size, with diameter within the inner ditch of around and two further ditches outside this. The enclosure was in use from around 1700–1500 BC, in the final phase of the Early Bronze Age, and was abandoned around 1300 BC, in the Middle Bronze Age. It was the first site of its type to be identified in northern Britain and possibly the first Middle Bronze Age site found in north east England. Early analysis had given dates as early as 3000 BC and appeared to show that the site was neither defensive nor a settlement, leading to speculation that it was a spiritual site, referred to in the press as a "prehistoric Glastonbury". However, radio carbon dating provided evidence that the site was not Neolithic, although it remained the case that its closest counterparts were late Neolithic enclosures that "probably defined ritual or ceremonial areas". It therefore provided evidence that new building following late Neolithic cultural traditions continued into the Bronze Age. Excavations lower on Mountjoy in 2009–2011 in preparation for the construction of the Palatine Centre and the extension of the Bill Bryson Library showed evidence for a possible Neolithic or Bronze Age settlement from evaluation of artefacts.Further excavations in the higher part of Mountjoy in 2009–2020 in preparation for construction of buildings and car parks in Upper Mountjoy revealed the existence of Iron Age and Romano-British field systems southwest of the Bronze Age enclosure, as well as sporadic Bronze Age use of this part of the hill and Mesolithic and Neolithic flints. The components of the Iron Age field system date from 810 BC to 20 AD, after which the site artists to have been abandoned. The Romano-British field system was then created slightly east of this in the late 2nd or early 3rd century and was in turn abandoned by the 5th century.