Near Newtown,

in March 1982.

Newtown Common? Ah, well, no, not actually...

From chapter 10, 'The Road and the Common':         'Newtown common - a country of peat, gorse and silver birch. After the meadows they had left, this was a strange, forbidding land. Trees, herbage, even the soil - all were unfamiliar. They hesitated among the thick heather, unable to see more than a few feet ahead. Their fur became soaked with the dew....'

Doesn't sound like this landscape does it? Where's the heather? It can be quite difficult to accurately locate some sites in just a single visit. This photograph was taken in the region marked as 'The Heather' (region 3 on the Penguin/Puffin editions) in the book, i.e. Newtown common. The problem is that it doesn't tie up with the description given in the book. In fact Newtown Common lies to the west of the region marked in the book - the map is wrong! So, while this was taken where the book's map says is the right place, in fact it isn't. Newtown Common is very different, and I hope is rather more like the description in the book! This problem is almost certainly not Adams' fault, and I should have checked the maps more carefully, but at the time I assumed the map in the book was right... Ah well, maybe I'll get back and get some photos of the real locations.         My thanks go to Simon Read, the Chair of Newtown Common Parish Council for pointing out my mistake.         Until I go back I'll leave you with these photos, which are close, but not close enough. It looks much more like the terrain described in 'Hard Going', but in fact isn't. This is the way we had just come, from Newtown Church. If you turn to the right, then in the middle distance you will see this:

This area, Newtown Common, is not. It is not publicly owned, but ‘owned in common’. That means anyone has access, and local landowners can exercise certain ‘commoners rights’ on it, such as grazing animals there.

The rabbits first glimpse of the distant Watership Down.

'Fiver was looking far out beyond the edge of the common. Four miles away, along the southern skyline, rose the seven hundred and fifty foot ridge of the downs. On the highest point, the beech trees of Cottington's Clump were moving in a stronger wind than that which blew across the heather.        'Look!' said Fiver suddenly. 'That's the place for us, Hazel. High, lonely hills, where the wind and the sound carry and the ground's as dry as straw in a barn....'

        That is Watership Down on the skyline. Oh, by the way, that '750 foot' refers to the height above sea level, the scarp slope of the downs rises no more than about 300 feet from the ground on the northern side.

These two photographs are part of a panoramic set. At last, thanks to computers, I can now let you see that panorama:

A panoramic view - the way they were going is on the left, the way they were coming from is on the right, Watership is to the left of the middle. My friend, Graham, loads a new film into his camera.