The Brook and the Woods,

in March 1982.

The brook runs left to right along a narrow fenced gully, the woods lying behind. Sandleford is on the left, the Enbourne away to the right. From chapter 5, 'In The Woods':         'It was getting on towards moonset when they left the fields and entered the wood. Straggling, catching up with one another, keeping more or less together, they had wandered over half a mile down the course of the brook. Although Hazel guessed that they must now have gone further from the warren than any rabbit he had ever talked to, he was not sure whether they were yet safely away: and it was while he was wondering - not for the first time - whether he could hear sounds of pursuit that he first noticed the dark masses of the tress and the brook disappearing among them.'

You are now looking towards the brook that runs from left to right, it's course is marked by a ramshackle wire fence, the wooden posts of which can be seen in the centre left. Beyond is 'the woods'. The rabbits would have entered the woods some way off in the distance to the right as we are at best no more than a quarter of a mile from the Sandleford Warren. The film made a big scene out of entering the woods, including a pan of the corner of the wood. Where this might represent is not clear. The fences in this area were (in 1982 at least) rather more run down than those in the film!

At this point Adams’s rabbits are still very much the nocturnal creatures our real brothers are. Later, and certainly by the time we reached Watership Down, our nocturnal habits have gone, and we become diurnal, like you humans. We still love dawns and sunsets of course, I can’t see why you don’t see more of them….