Watership Down

Watership Down is a chalk hill in Hampshire’s North Wessex Downs. It stands near the villages of Ecchinswell, Sydmonton and Bishops Green, rising steeply on its northern side and gently to the south. The summit reaches 237 metres above sea level, one of the county’s highest points. Its name comes from the old English for an artificial watercourse, linked to a nearby farm. The exposed ridge is swept by winds and crowned by a beech tree planted in memory of Richard Adams. The hill is famous as the setting for Adams’s 1972 novel about rabbits. A bridleway and long-distance footpath, the Wayfarer’s Walk, follows the ridge along the down’s south-eastern edge. To the west lies Ladle Hill, part of a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest with Iron Age remains on its summit. Iron Age burial mounds, field banks and enclosures dot the surrounding landscape. Further west again is Beacon Hill, while Kingsclere village provides access to the open downland. Walkers and cyclists use the broad tracks that cross the exposed summit. The wind-bent beech tree marks the spot where Adams imagined Hazel and his companions. Below, the gentle dip side offers quieter paths through farmland. Watership Stud, a nearby horse-breeding farm, belongs to Andrew Lloyd Webber and his wife Madeleine Gurdon, who live at Sydmonton Court.