Chain Hill

Chain Hill is one of the hills of the Berkshire Downs, located in the civil parish of Wantage in the English county of Oxfordshire. In 1974 it was transferred from Berkshire. It is designated part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty by the Countryside Agency and forms part of the Vale of White Horse.

Chain Hill is the chalk downland hill directly above Wantage and also the name of the road rising from Wantage through the westerly part of the scarp to the Berkshire Downs. It rises steeply south of Wantage towards Wantage Field and back to the Ridgeway and east from Manor Road across to Lark Hill. Chain Hill is also known as the B4494 and is signposted to Newbury.

At the crest of the hill, there is a small community amid copses of beech, fir and chestnut and a reservoir which taps into the chalk water beds and supplies water to Wantage. Apart from this, most of Chain Hill is wide undulating crop plains made up of large fields descending from the ridgeway. At the bottom slopes of Chain Hill is a cemetery and then at the bottom of this, is Ormond Road and former St Mary's School.