Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Hill, Norman Gray

July 1894 – 24 February 1944

Norman Gray Hill was one of four offspring born to Sir Norman and Lady Hill, and their only son. A younger sister, Rosalind, 14 years his junior, became a professor of medieval history at the University of London.

The family originally lived in the north-west, where Norman Hill Senior was a leading shipping lawyer with the Liverpool firm Hill, Dickinson & Co. By the 1911 census, however, Green Place, Stockbridge was also a family home, occupied by Ellen Mary Stratford Hill and her two oldest children.

Norman Gray Hill was 20 at the outbreak of the Great War and served in the Duke of Lancaster’s Yeomanry, entering France in April 1915. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in December 1916 and by the end of the conflict had been awarded the Military Cross.

It’s not clear if he was ever destined to join the family law firm, or whether his war experience changed his trajectory. In any event, soon after hostilities ended, he followed a medical career, receiving his Bachelor of Medicine from the London Hospital and becoming Deputy Medical Superintendent at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Carshalton.

By the early 1930s, the family was well-established at Green Place and Sir Norman had been conferred not only with a baronetcy, but also Lordship of the Manor of Stockbridge. This brought certain responsibilities, not least ensuring that Stockbridge Down should retain its commoners’ rights. This stretch of land, uncultivated since prehistoric times, was to play an important part in his son’s archaeological endeavours and historical researches.

At the Jubilee of King George V, it was agreed there should be a celebratory bonfire on the Down and in preparing the ground a human skull and other bones were found. This resulted in two seasons of summer excavation led by Dr Hill, at the end of which 41 skeletons had been discovered, along with numerous other bones. All the evidence pointed towards it being the site of an ‘execution cemetery’ and a small cache of silver pennies, hidden in the armpit of one of the deceased, dated some of the burials, at least, to late in the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042 – 1066).

The excavation led Hill to undertake research into other late Saxon cemeteries in the area and to investigate other parts of Stockbridge Down, sometimes in the company of J F S ‘Marcus’ Stone. Rabbit activity could be relied upon to unearth interesting clues and a Beaker burial and pottery vessel were among the finds reported on and presented to the British Museum.

With the advent of World War II, Norman Gray Hill joined the 2nd Battalion, Royal Army Medical Corps, becoming a Lt-Colonel. He had only just succeeded to the baronetcy, with the death of his father, when he himself was killed on 24 February 1944, while serving in Sicily. He is buried in the military cemetery at Catania.

Lady Hill had died in 1943, and with the death of her father and brother, Rosalind Hill decided to leave Green Place and their other Stockbridge holdings to the National Trust, although she continued to play the role of Lady of the Manor at the annual Courts Baron and Leet for many years.

Norman Gray Hill is remembered at the Harveian Society’s Buckston Browne-Gray Hill dinner, held annually.

Sources

Hampshire Record Office 87M97 Hill of Stockbridge.

Portrait

Lt Col Gray Hill in his WWII RAMC uniform: 
Hampshire Record Office, Hill of Stockbridge papers, 87M97/D2

Contribution to county’s history

Norman Gray Hill followed the family tradition in taking an interest in the history of Stockbridge. His own particular fascination was in the archaeological evidence on Stockbridge Down. 

Relevant published works

• Hill, NG (1937) Excavations on Stockbridge Down 1935-36, Proc Hants Field Club & Archaeol Soc, 13, 247 – 59

• Hill, NG (1938) Human Skeleton found on Stockbridge Down, Proc Hants Field Club & Archaeol Soc, 14, 88

• Stone, JFS & Hill, NG (1940) A Middle Bronze Age site at Stockbridge, Hampshire, Proc Prehist Soc 4, 249-57

• Stone, JFS & Hill, NG (1940) A round barrow on Stockbridge Down, Antiq Journ 20, 39-51.

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Contributor

Dave Allen, April 2023

Key Words

Test Valley, Stockbridge Down, archaeology, late saxon cemetries

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