Close Your Eyes

"There are many pleasanter places even in this dreary world, than Marlborough Downs when it blows hard; and if you throw in beside, a gloomy winter's evening, a miry and sloppy road, and a pelting fall of heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experiment, in your own proper person, you will experience the full force of this observation."

from Chapter XIV of "The Pickwick Papers" by Charles Dickens

Do You Hear The Sound?

Can you hear beyond the silence that is really not silence? Beyond the song of the skylark, as she soars to the skies?....Can you hear....? Here on the downs, the past, the present and the future meet, those dim but audible voices from the past, telling us of what they knew and encouraging us to learn from the lessons provided, the voices of the present, those voices that would indeed learn from the past, and those same voices applying, what they have learned from the past, to the future and so the circle of life continues for all time.........

Close Your Eyes

Close your eyes, now what do you hear?

Apart from the wind on high,

Apart from the horn of a distant car,

Apart from the lark as she takes to the sky?

Do you hear the sound of the drovers cry,

and the cattle he lead to the Wiltshire towns?

Over many centuries, many miles,

So many drives on the Marlborough Downs.

In summer and snows the shepherd was here,

Guiding his flock to the nearby pens,

Up on The Ridgeway, year after year,

Lambing, then market, then lambing again.

Can you hear the pick in the ancient hand?

Carving a horse in the chalky hill,

The murmur of Avebury stones where they sand,

Sometimes on the wind you can hear it still.

Close your eyes now what do you hear?

©Ashley Hutchings/Chris While

Avebury Stone Circle

Avebury Panoramic Tour.
The only internet site about

Avebury From Avebury.

Evidence of Hampshire's

Agricultural History

A learning journey through

the history in Hampshire's countryside

Market Towns In Hampshire

1724

taken from

Daniel Defoe's Hampshire. 1724

Marlborough

Rob and Angela Dickens

run and ogranise this very

informative website on this,

a very famous Wiltshire village.

Marlborough Downs

From Swindon in the north

to the Vale of Pewsey in

the south, from Calne to the

eastern boundary of the county

lays the gentle undulating

Marlborough Downs,

sometimes known as the

Wessex Downs.

These downlands offer

great opportunities for

walkers and ramblers.

Marlborough Images

images in words and pictures

of this oldest of villages

in Wiltshire

Savernake Forest

Savernake is a surviving

remnant of one of Wiltshire's

ancient 'Royal Forests'

much beloved by Norman kings.

Today the forest is leased

to the Forestry Commission

and access is via

many paths and tracks.

It remains a place of

mystery and imagination

and an important habitat for

a number of wild birds,

plants and animals.
a well researched

(what did you expect?)

from the BBC

Some Marlborough Pictures

and very nicely done too

The North Wessex Downs

another name for

The Marlborough Downs.

this site from the BBC's wonderful

programme, Open Country.

The Ridgeway

Described as Britain's and

perhaps Europe's Oldest Road,

The Ridgeway is a 85 mile (137km)

route that follows the

chalk hills between

Overton Hill, near Avebury

and Ivinghoe Beacon in Hertfordshire.

This website, once more, from

the BBC

The White Horses of Wiltshire

Five of the horses lay close to

one another within a five mile

radius of Avebury which lies

in the very centre of the Wiltshire Downs;

three further horses lie a

short distance further away.

All may be visited by road or

via track-ways, the old lines of

communication in this area.

ridgeriders website is

2010/2011/2012/2013.2014

albionchronicles