There is evidence of man's activity at the site since the Mesolithic period including Bathampton Camp, an Iron Age hillfort or stock enclosure.

[4] The southern area merges with Claverton Down and lies above part of the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines Site of Special Scientific Interest, designated because of the Greater and Lesser Horseshoe bat population.

[7] At the highest point is a Triangulation station at a height of 204 metres (669 ft) above sea level,[8][9] which provides views over the city and surrounding countryside.

The first evidence of human activity is from the Mesolithic period and consists of a dispersed collection of flint finds,[3] including hammerstones, cores, fragments of axes and arrowheads.

The eastern side needs no protection, because the ground falls away steeply to the River Avon, 170 metres (558 ft) below.

[16] The area to the south east, which is known as Bushey Norwood and includes part of the ramparts and some surviving upright stones, was given to the National Trust by Miss M.E.

[17] There is some evidence of a small Roman villa, although the area is more noted for funerary activity with two Romano-British stone coffins being found in 1794 and 1824, both containing inhumation remains.

[18][19] There is stronger evidence of agrarian activity with extant strip lynchets to the west of Bathwick Wood.

[22] Sham Castle, a folly on the western edge of Bathampton Warren, was probably designed around 1755 by Sanderson Miller and was built in 1762 by Richard James, master mason for Ralph Allen, "to improve the prospect" from Ralph Allen's town house in Bath.

A drinking water reservoir was constructed on the down in 1955,[2] although the land had originally been purchased by the City Council of Bath in 1928.

A proposal to move the boundary of the "Green Belt" surrounding the town from where it crosses the campus to its edge, to facilitate further development area for the university, was agreed in October 2007, by the local council for Bath and North East Somerset following a public inquiry.