Hill town

A hill town is any citadel town built upon hills to make invasion difficult. Often protected by defensive walls, steep embankments, or cliffs, such hilltop settlements provided natural defenses for their inhabitants.

In Europe, especially in Italy, Spain, Portugal and southern France, such towns were common.

The Spanish even brought the traditional European hill town to the Americas, a notable example being the 16th century Mexican hill town of Guanajuato. However, fortified hill towns were by no means solely a European creation. For instance, Incan fortified hill towns predated the arrival of the Spanish by many centuries and rival those of Europe. Machu Picchu, an Incan hill town completed in the mid-15th century in Peru, although now in ruins, is considered perhaps the most beautiful hill town ever constructed. Construction of fortified hill towns was common in many civilizations. Ancient examples can also be found in Africa and Asia.

Around the world, the most famous examples are the hilltowns of Darjeeling and Simla.

Old Hilltown, California

Old Hilltown (formerly, Hill Town) is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California. It is located on the north side of the Salinas River 3 miles (4.8 km) south-southwest of Salinas on California State Route 68, at an elevation of 46 feet (14 m).

The first European land exploration of Alta California, the Spanish Portolá expedition, camped on the Salinas River in this vicinity on September 30, 1769, having followed the river from the south for several days. From this camp, the scouts went out to survey the route ahead and saw Monterey Bay for the first time. Unsure whether the point they could see at the southern end of the bay was the "Point of Pines" described by Sebastian Vizcaino in 1602, Portola decided that the party should investigate.

Hill Town was established at a ford of the Salinas River called Paso del Quinto. Hill Town was the site of one of the first ferries on the Salinas River. The ferry operated until 1889 when a bridge was built across the river. The site is now registered as California Historical Landmark #560.

Burgess Hill

Coordinates: 50°57′13″N 0°07′34″W / 50.9535°N 0.1262°W / 50.9535; -0.1262

Burgess Hill is a civil parish and a town primarily located in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England, close to the border with East Sussex, on the edge of the South Downs National Park. Located 39 mi (63 km) south of London, 10 mi (16 km) north of Brighton and Hove, and 29 mi (47 km) east-northeast of the county town of Chichester, it occupies an area of 3.7 sq mi (9.6 km²) and had a population of 30,635 at the time of the 2011 Census, making it the fourth most populous parish in the county (behind Crawley, Worthing and Horsham) and the most populous in the district. Other nearby towns include Haywards Heath to the north east and Lewes, the county town of East Sussex, to the south east.

Burgess Hill is predominantly situated just on the West Sussex side of the border dividing the two counties, although parts of the World's End district in the northeast are across the county boundary in the Lewes district of East Sussex.

Burgess Hill Town F.C.

Burgess Hill Town Football Club is an English football club currently playing in the Premier Division of the Isthmian League, the seventh tier of English football. The club plays its home games at The Green Elephant Stadium (Leylands Park) in Burgess Hill, West Sussex.

History

Burgess Hill Football Club was founded in 1882 and was a founder member of the Sussex County Football Association. The club attained the unique achievement of winning the Sussex Senior Cup three years running thus retaining it permanently in the process. The cup is on display in the trophy cabinet in the club boardroom. The current trophy was presented to the S.C.F.A. by Burgess Hill Town Football Club. In the club's formative years they were also founder members of the Mid-Sussex Football League, and won the League Championship in its inaugural season.

Following several successful seasons the club joined the Sussex County League for the 1958–59 season, and stayed until attaining promotion to the Southern Football League in 2003. In 1969 the club amalgamated with Worlds End F.C. and with the help of Burgess Hill Town Council were able to move to Leylands Park, the club's current home. In 1971, the club gained promotion to Division One, only to be relegated two seasons later. 1974 saw the 'Hillians' reach another landmark achievement by becoming the only club ever to have won both the League Challenge Cup and the Division Two Cup in the same season. In 1976 a hat trick of achievements were completed by winning the Division One Championship by six points, having secured the Division Two title the previous season.

Hill

A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit (e.g. Box Hill, Surrey).

Terminology

The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally considered to be less tall and less steep than a mountain. In the United Kingdom, geographers historically regarded mountains as hills greater than 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, which formed the basis of the plot of the 1995 film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. In contrast, hillwalkers have tended to regard mountains as peaks 2,000 feet (610 m) above sea level: the Oxford English Dictionary also suggests a limit of 2,000 feet (610 m) and Whittow states "Some authorities regard eminences above 600 m (2,000 ft) as mountains, those below being referred to as hills." The Great Soviet Encyclopedia defines hill as an upland with a relative height up to 200 m (660 ft).