Friends of Troopers Hill

Friends of Troopers Hill provides a friendly community focus for people who care about Troopers Hill in St George.

We hope that local residents and visitors will be inspired by the Green Capital events to join us in helping to care for this unique and important site.

Troopers Hill Local Nature Reserve is a hillside with heather and broom, rocky crags and gullies, stunning views and two listed chimneys. Overlooking the River Avon, the hill’s unique ecology makes it one of Bristol’s most important nature reserves. The heathland and acid grassland on the hill is home to a huge range of invertebrates. Butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, beeflies and mining bees all make their home here and some of the species are not only unusual for Bristol but are also rare in a national context. If you are really lucky you might spy a deer or even a lizard basking in the sunshine.

With its exposed rock faces of 300 million year old pennant sandstone Troopers Hill is also of interest to geologists. While the two chimneys are reminders of its industrial past when the area was used for copper smelting, coal mining and quarrying.

Troopers Hill is an important remnant of a habitat that would have covered a much larger area in the 1600s when it was part of Kingswood Forest. It exists because of the activities man in the past but it now needs man’s help to ensure that it continues to survive into the future.

Friends of Troopers Hill work with Bristol Parks to make sure Troopers Hill is well looked after; we carry out practical conservation work to help look after Troopers Hill and organise public events such as walks and talks. In 2015 we will be holding a series of guided walks as part of a programme to highlight the hill and other nearby green spaces St George.

Join us to help care for Troopers Hill on the first Saturday of every month from 10am to 12 noon. Full details of how to join us together with details of all our free events and directions to find us are on our website at www.troopers-hill.org.uk

Email friends@troopers-hill.org.uk or follow us on twitter @TroopersHill