The Devil's Chimney, Leckhampton

The Devil's Chimney is a tall pillar of limestone standing just below the edge of Leckhampton Hill, on the Cotswold Edge above Cheltenham. It is the best-known landmark of the hill, seen from the Cotswold Way along the top, and almost certainly the work of quarrymen rather than nature alone.

History

The Devil's Chimney is a leftover of the quarries that worked Leckhampton Hill from the late eighteenth century to the 1920s. The Friends of Leckhampton Hill give the likeliest explanation: when the quarrymen cut an incline up to the top of the hill, this section of rock was left standing on its own, and the weather has worn it into shape since, perhaps with some help from the quarrymen themselves. No date for its making is recorded.

The legends

Stories grew up around it all the same. The best known, retold when the hill became a National Nature Reserve in 2026, has the Devil building it so that he could throw stones at people on their way to church.

The quarries around it

The Chimney stands among the old workings that give the hill its cliffs. Around 1875 the quarries were producing about 8,000 tons of stone a year, mostly for roads, gravel and lime, and tramways and inclines carried it off the hill. The industry ended in the 1920s, and after the access riots of 1902 and 1906 and the town council's purchase of the hill in 1927, it was opened to everyone in 1929.

What to see

The pillar is best seen from the path along the scarp edge just west of the hillfort, looking down and across to it, with Cheltenham spread out behind.

• The layered Jurassic limestone in the pillar and the quarry faces around it, laid down in a shallow sea about 170 million years ago.
• The old inclines that brought stone down the hill, now the main paths from Daisy Bank Road.
• The ruins of the four limekilns of the early 1920s part way down, with an information board beside them.
• On the summit, the ramparts of Leckhampton Camp and the trig point.

Visiting

The Devil's Chimney is on registered common land owned by Cheltenham Borough Council, free and open at all times. Climbing on the pillar is strictly forbidden, and the quarry edge above it is steep and the rock loose, so keep back from the brink, and keep children and dogs close. The hill is grazed by Belted Galloway cattle in autumn and winter: dogs on a short lead near them, and on open access land from 1 March to 31 July.

Getting there

From the top, park at Salterley Quarry or Brownstones Quarry, reached from the east end of Hartley Lane, and walk west along the edge. From Cheltenham, the Daisy Bank and Bridge car parks on Daisy Bank Road give a steep climb up the old inclines. On foot, the Cotswold Way passes along the edge above it; our Leckhampton Hill and Devil's Chimney walk is built around it, and the Seven Springs and Leckhampton Hill walk passes it.

Nearby

Leckhampton Camp is on the summit a few minutes away, and the rest of Leckhampton Hill and Charlton Kings Common is a National Nature Reserve of quarries and grassland. About 3km along the scarp, Crickley Hill has a café, toilets and its own hillfort. Below the hill, the Wheatsheaf in Leckhampton has a large garden and Sunday roasts.