Sandy Hobbs | Dear Mister Thoms # 25, 1993

What do Sheffield, England, and Plovdiv, Bulgaria have in common? Consider the following: “Legend has it that Sheffield is built on seven hills…” (Richard Burns, “Sheffield the city of craft and graft”, The Guardian, 16 October 1991, page 21).

This caught my eye, not just because of the word “legend” but because I recalled being told that Aberdeen was built on seven hills. David Cornwell informs me that he has been told the same of Glasgow, Browsing in the Dictionnaire Universel des Noms Propres (Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1987), I discovered that Plovdiv was described as “construite sur sept collines”.

One of the problems with such a claim is that, if a town is built in a hilly area, and if it expands over the years as most towns presumably do, then many towns at some stage may be said to be built on seven hills. The reason for the claim is presumably to equate the town concerned with Rome, but how valid is the claim for Rome itself.

I would be interested to hear of other cases where towns have this claim made for them.