Watership Down, Hampshire

Watership Down is a hill, or down, at Ecchinswell in the civil parish of Ecchinswell, Sydmonton and Bishops Green in the English county of Hampshire. It rises fairly steeply on its northern flank, but to the south the slope is much gentler (an escarpment). gbmapping|SU497570.

The Down is best known as the setting for Richard Adams' 1972 novel about rabbits, also called "Watership Down". The area is popular with walkers and cyclistsFact|date=February 2007 — a bridleway runs along the ridge of the Down — and it lies at the south-eastern edge of the North Wessex Downs Area of Natural Beauty. Other nearby features include ancient tumuli and earthworks, including Beacon Hill.

Watership Down is accessible via the village of Kingsclere. There are no signposts nor guide boards on the Down itself, and there is no official guide or visitor information. This is partly because much of the area is privately owned (by Andrew Lloyd Webber), and partly because one of the main themes of the book itself was against development, building and roadsFact|date=February 2007.

External links

* [http://www.hants.gov.uk/cycling/routes/watershipdown.html Hampshire Council Watership Down cycle trail]
* [http://www.mayfieldiow.freewire.co.uk/watershp/watermain.htm Photographs of Watership Down]
* [http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/literary.htm Photos and descriptions] of a visit to Watership Down.