Come and Look, you can see the Whole World!

in March 1981.

The view from the top of Watership Down, looking north. From chapter 18, 'Watership Down':       'The light, full and smooth, lay like a gold rind over the turf, the furze and yew bushes, the few wind-stunted thorn trees. From the ridge, the light seemed to cover all the slope below, drowsy and still. But down in the grass itself, between the bushes, in that thick forest trodden by the beetle, the spider and the hunting shrew, the moving light was like a wind that danced among them and set them to scurrying and weaving. The red rays flickered in and out of the grass stems, flashing minutely on membranous wings, casting long shadows behind the thinnest of filamentary legs, breaking each patch of bare soil into a myriad individual grains. The insects buzzed, whined, hummed, stridulated, and droned as the air grew warmer in the sunset. Louder yet calmer than they, among the trees, sounded the yellowhammer, the linnet and greenfinch. The larks went up, twittering in the scented air above the down. From the summit, the apparent immobility of the vast blue distance was broken, here and there, by wisps of smoke and tiny, momentary flashes of glass. Far below lay the fields green with wheat, the flat pastures grazed by horses, the darker greens of the woods. They too, like the hillside jungle, were tumultuous with evening, but from the remote height turned to stillness, their fierceness tempered by the air that lay between

You made it to the top! Was it worth it? Well, only you can say but I certainly enjoyed it. Here is part of the view, with Nuthanger to the right. You are standing on the broad expanse of the top of Watership Down. Where are the rabbits? Where is the Honeycomb? You are standing in front of a wide gallop used to train racehorses, if you cross it and look behind you, you will see the hanger:

From the top of Watership Down you can see Newbury and even the Lambourne Downs. On foggy days you can barely see the grass in front of you. Yes, it really does seem as though you can see the whole world from up here, but just the world to the north. You can’t see a thing to the south. For that you need to be up in the air: the downs are popular with hang- and para-gliders.

On the top of Watership Down, looking south towards the beech hanger.

And what do you know, that's my friend Graham coming towards us. He must have taken the car to the track that doubles as a car park for dog walkers and walked up the path from the road. But that's the beech hanger behind him, that is where the rabbits dug the Honeycomb. To be truthful this photograph was taken some years after the one above; I went on my first visit to Watership Down alone. Lets go and meet him and look at the hanger in more detail.