The Punch Bowl is a large natural amphitheatre and is the source of many stories about the area. The London to Portsmouth road (the A3) skirted the rim of the site before the Hindhead Tunnel was built in 2011. The land is owned and maintained by the National Trust as part of the "Hindhead Commons and the Devil's Punch Bowl" property. The highest point of the rim of the bowl is Gibbet Hill, which is 272 metres (892 ft) above sea level and commands a panoramic view that includes, on a clear day, the skyline of London some 38 miles (61 km) away.[3][5]
The Devil's Punch Bowl was featured on the 2005 TV programme Seven Natural Wonders as one of the wonders of the South.[6]
Etymology
Aerial view of the Devil's Punch Bowl (photographed in January 2007, before the closure of the old A3).
The name Devil's Punch Bowl dates from at least 1768, the year that John Rocque's map of the area was published. This was 18 years before the murder of the unknown sailor on Gibbet Hill, so this event was clearly not the origin of the name. Prior to 1768, it was marked as "ye Bottom" on a map by John Ogilby dated 1675. The northern end of the Bowl is known as Highcombe Bottom which exists in different variants: Hackombe Bottom, Hacham Bottom, and Hackham Bottom.[7][8][9]
Natural history
The geology of this part of Surrey comprises a sandstone known as the Hythe Formation, beneath which is a mudstone known as the Atherfield Clay Formation. This deep depression is believed to be the result of erosion caused by spring water beneath the sandstone, causing the upper level to collapse. With its steep sides, the Devil's Punch Bowl, characterised by heathland, streams and woodland, is an SSSI.
The site has abundant wildlife. Most woodland species can be seen easily - including lesser spotted woodpecker and common redstart. It has been known for the wood warbler, a rare summer visitor, but the last documented sighting was in 2009.[10]
Ownership and status
National Trust sign at the Punch Bowl
The Devil’s Punch Bowl, along with Hindhead Common, was acquired by the National Trust in 1906, making it one of the first open spaces acquired by the Trust. The beauty of the area and the diversity of nature it attracts resulted in the Devil's Punch Bowl being designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest on 30 April 1986.[1][11]
This ownership and status helped save the Devil's Punch Bowl from above-ground redevelopment of the A3 in the first decade of the 21st century. The National Trust co-operated with developers Balfour Beatty, who designed the alternative Hindhead Tunnel, running underneath the area. The tunnel preserves not only the area from the road widening originally proposed but also removes the heavy traffic congestion which previously affected this section of the A3 in peak hours.[12][13][14]
The National Trust provide car parking and a cafe at the Hindhead end of the Devil's Punch Bowl. A number of different footpaths, of differing length and difficulty, provide access to all parts of the Punch Bowl and surrounding area.[3][15]
A major naval dockyard has existed in Portsmouth since at least Tudor times, making communications between there and London an important issue. The combination of the Devil's Punch Bowl and nearby Gibbet Hill provide a significant challenge to those communications and, as a consequence, there have been three generations of road around (or under) the Devil's Punch Bowl.[17]
The oldest, and highest in altitude, was the Old Portsmouth Road, which climbed to the summit of Gibbet Hill before skirting the Punch Bowl and descending into Hindhead. This was famously the site of the murder of an unknown sailor in 1786, commemorated by the roadside Sailor's Stone. The road still exists as a route for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders, although closed to all but essential road vehicles.[18][19]
In 1826, when it became feasible to make a cutting through the hillside, a new road was created to replace the Old Portsmouth Road. This used a cutting to by-pass Gibbet Hill, and skirted the Punch Bowl at a slightly lower altitude. This ensured that the gradient was no more than 5% and meant that horses pulling larger and heavier carriages avoided the exhausting climb to the highest parts of the old road. The new road became part of the A3 when road numbering was introduced in the 1920s, and remained part of the principal route from London to Portsmouth until 2011.[20]
By the start of the 21st century, most of the A3 had been widened to form a dual carriageway, leaving only the section that passed through Hindhead and the Devil's Punch Bowl as single carriageway. This section operated at or above capacity for much of the day and had an accident rate 40% higher than the national average for that class of road. As a consequence, the decision was create a tunnel link passing under Gibbet Hill and the Punch Bowl. The Hindhead Tunnel opened in 2011, and the 1826 route of the A3 has now been removed with the intention that it should eventually revert to natural heathland.[12][13][14][21]
In fiction
Punch Bowl Farm, at the northern end of the Devil's Punch Bowl, was the home of children's novelist Monica Edwards from 1947 until 1998. In her books she renamed the farm Punchbowl Farm.[22][23] In Charles Dickens' novel Nicholas Nickleby, Nicholas and Smike visit the Devil's Punch Bowl on their journey to Portsmouth.[24]
The third novel in the Horatio Hornblower series, Flying Colours by C.S. Forester, makes a one-line reference to the Devil's Punch Bowl in chapter eighteen as Hornblower is returning to London: "Even the marvellous beauty of the Devil's Punch Bowl was lost on Hornblower as they drove past it."[25]
The "Devil's Punch-Bowl in Surrey" is briefly mentioned in The Shining Pyramid, a short story by Arthur Machen,[26] and in "The Manhood of Edward Robinson", the fifth story in Agatha Christie's The Listerdale Mystery and Other Stories.[27] The area is the setting for Sabine Baring-Gould's novel The Broom-squire.[28]
Local legends
The Devil's Punch Bowl seen from above, by the Sailor's Stone
Local legend has colourful theories as to its creation. According to one story, the Devil became so irritated by all the churches being built in Sussex during the Middle Ages that he decided to dig a channel from the English Channel through the South Downs and flood the area. As he began digging, he threw up huge lumps of earth, each of which became a local landmark — such as Chanctonbury Ring, Cissbury Ring and Mount Caburn. He got as far as the village of Poynings (an area known as the Devil's Dyke) when he was disturbed by a cock crowing. (One version of this story claims that it was the prayers of St Dunstan that made all the local cocks crow earlier than usual.) The devil assumed that dawn was about to break and leapt into Surrey, creating the Devil's Punch Bowl where he landed.
Another story goes that, in his spare time, he hurled lumps of earth at the god Thor to annoy him. The hollow out of which he scooped the earth became the Punch Bowl. The local village of Thursley means Thor's place.[29] An alternative version of this story says that Thor threw the earth at the Devil, who was annoying Thor by jumping across the Devil's Jumps.[30]
Legacy project
'Portal' sculpture at Devil's Punch Bowl
A lottery award from the Heritage Lottery Fund was made in 2012 for a project with young people from schools in the area, celebrating the landscape. Several sculptures marked the completion in early 2013 and a carving from a 3-tonne block of Portland stone by Jon Edgar now sits on the spine of the former A3 near the visitor centre.[3][31]
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