The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain is a 1995 romantic comedy film with a story by Ifor David Monger and Ivor Monger, written and directed by Christopher Monger. It was entered into the 19th Moscow International Film Festival and was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.
The film is based on a story heard by Christopher Monger from his grandfather about the real village of Taff's Well, in the old county of Glamorgan, and its neighbouring Garth Hill. Due to 20th century urbanisation of the area, it was filmed in the more rural Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and Llansilin in Powys.
Plot
In 1917, during World War I, two English cartographers, the pompous George Garrad and his junior, Reginald Anson, arrive in the fictional Welsh village of Ffynnon Garw to measure its "mountain", but everyone in town is at church, it being a Sunday. The only exception is Morgan the Goat who manages the local inn and is the only redhead in the village. Most of the men of the town are away at war and the film implies that the women are visiting the inn and having redheaded children. The cartographers reach the top and do some preliminary measurements and come up with a height of 930 feet, qualifying it as a mere hill. Anson returns and reassures them that they have more accurate measurements to make the next day.
The next day, the entire village is milling around the mountain and eagerly anticipating the results. The cartographers announce that the more accurate measurements indicate a height of 984 feet, just 16 feet short of qualifying the "hill" as a mountain at . The townsfolk are crestfallen and hold a town hall meeting. Morgan the Goat proposes that they raise the mountain by 20 feet, and the villagers return to the cartographers to persuade them to stay while they build a structure on the mountain, but Anson disagrees and says they have a tight schedule and they will be leaving in the morning. The Reverend Robert Jones, who, after initially opposing the scheme, grasps its symbolism in restoring the community's war-damaged self-esteem, conspires with Morgan to delay the cartographers' departure while they build an earth mound on top of the hill and make it high enough to be considered a mountain.
The next morning, everyone rallies and starts digging earth from their backyards and transporting it to the hill. The first day they make a mound that is approximately 14 feet high. Meanwhile, the cartographers' car is sabotaged, with the town mechanic deliberately fumbling around and breaking a part, informing them that a replacement needs to be brought in from Cardiff. When the cartographers try to catch a train from the local station, they are misinformed that the trains only carry coal. Morgan also enlists a local woman, Betty, to entertain the two Englishmen.
At this point, it starts raining and the mud on the hill starts washing off down from 14 to 10 feet. Morgan declares an emergency and asks the mechanic to remove the tarpaulin covering the broken car and to take it to the mountain to cover the construction site. The rain continues all night and all day from Thursday to Sunday. On Sunday, Reverend Jones encourages the villagers to finish the work they started. Upon Anson's suggestion, they also cover the mound with sod before the last light. During the works, Reverend Jones collapses and dies from exhaustion and old age, and the mourning villagers bury him on the mountain.
After the burial, the townspeople convince Anson to stay the night at the top of the mountain and measure it at the break of dawn because their train leaves early. Betty, who has gotten close to him, offers to keep him company, and they end up sharing a kiss. When Anson descends from the mountain, he informs the people that the mountain is 1,002 feet high and also announces his engagement to Betty.
Many years later, the mountain has settled down to 997 feet, thus turning back into a hill. The spirit of the Reverend buried on the mountain exhales "a hill" in a groan and all the modern-day townspeople rally with buckets of earth to raise the mountain again.