Gog Magog Downs - History

History

The earliest mention of the biblical name Gog and Magog for this region is found in a decree of 1574, forbidding students to visit the Gog Magog Hills on pain of a fine. Random excavations around the hills revealed the remains of defences at Copley Hill and Cherry Hinton, not older than the Iron Age but the sites themselves are now known already to have been occupied in the Bronze Age. The better-preserved hill fort known as the Wandlebury Ring, which is now situated in a public park, had several concentric ditches and earthen walls, which were kept in place by wooden palisades. It was already inhabited in the Bronze Age and archaeological findings include bronze and iron objects and pottery, including "Knobbed Ware", dating from the Bronze Age.

"Telegraph clump" functioned as one of the locations for the semaphore line, an optical telegraph system, between London and Great Yarmouth from around the 1820s to around 1850.

The dowser and archaeologist Thomas Charles Lethbridge claimed to have found some ancient hill figures buried in the chalk under the surface of the hills. These purported to represent a sun-god, a moon-goddess and a warrior-god. Lethbridge's claims, however, were controversial and are not widely accepted.

In 1989 the Magog Trust, a charity and registered company created for the purpose bought 163.5 acres (66.2 ha) of the downs for £330,000 so it could be returned to chalk grassland and opened to the public.

However the bulk of the chalk downs have been converted to a golf course since 1901 by the Gog Magog Golf Club.