UP! - North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

SWINDON
Trail – a 90-mile (145km)
walk devised to take in all its
existing white horse hill
figures.
With the white horses
commanding hilltop sites,
the White Horse Trail
provides majestic views
from the Marlborough
Downs, Roundway Hill,
Tan Hill, the Wansdyke
and across the Vale of
Pewsey – all everpopular
destinations for
walkers.
The Trail passes through or near
the market towns of
Devizes and
Marlborough and a
number of peaceful
and interesting villages.
One walking section
passes close to
prehistoric Avebury,
Silbury Hill and the
West Kennet Long Barrow – definitely worth a
short detour.
Valleys, woods, hills, open fields and
abundant wildlife add natural variety on the
White Horse Trail, as does the man-made
interest of the Kennet & Avon Canal with its
famous flight of 29 locks at Caen Hill, Devizes.
Located at Roundway village, north-east of
Devizes, White Horse Walking Holidays, run by
keen ramblers Sue Melvin and her husband
Martyn, offers mapped walks to all the white
horses and provides another essential for an
8 | UP! On The North Wessex Downs
Broad Town White Horse
Cherhill White Horse
Devizes White Horse
Alton Barnes White Horse
White
Horse
Trail
The White Horse Trail also includes the Westbury white
horse but this is not within the North Wessex Downs AONB.
ideal walking holiday – a welcoming B&B with
good food and a comfortable bed.
The wonder of white horses
Sue Melvin worked with Jenna Spellane,
Exhibition Officer of Wiltshire Archaeological
and Natural History Society in staging a White
Horses and Hill Figures Exhibition at the
Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes last year.
Opened in March 2010 and supported by a
North Wessex Downs AONB grant, the
exhibition proved such a huge hit with local,
UK and international visitors that it was
extended until February this year.
www.visitwiltshire.co.uk
Hackpen White Horse www.whitehorsewalking.co.uk
www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk
Walk Britain’s oldest high
street . . .
Thousands of years old, the Ridgeway
may once have tracked coast-to-coast
following the chalk escarpment across
south-east England for
250 miles (400km) from
the Dorset coast to the
Wash in Norfolk.
The central section of
this ancient hilltop route
lies within the North
Wessex Downs – 43 miles
(69km) from Overton Hill
near Avebury to the River
Thames at Streatley – and
was the literal ‘high street’
of our forefathers.
The Ridgeway, with its
high and dry advantages,
would have provided a safe and viable walking
route that avoided the prehistoric dangers in
the valleys below. For centuries home-seeking
families, drovers, traders and soldiers would
have used this chalkridge downland route.
Today, walkers (and cyclists and riders)
continue to enjoy the superb views and natural
beauty of the Ridgeway, now protected and
promoted as a National Trail – or as many
would say, a national treasure. ■
www.nationaltrail.co.uk/ridgeway
Marlborough White Horse
Pewsey White Horse