On the Real Watership Down
Cottington’s Clump
The moon sailed free of the cloud and lit the heather more brightly, but neither Hazel nor Fiver moved from the top of the bank. 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’s where we ought to be. That’s where we have to get to.’
Chapter Ten—The Road and the Common
Cottington’s Clump receives only one mention in the novel, as the wooded copse on the highest point of the the ‘seven hundred and fifty-foot ridge of the downs’ visible from Newtown Common (Chapter Ten, The Road and the Common). It was a view extremely familiar to Richard Adams. In his autobiographical The Day Gone By, he writes of his childhood home in Wash Common, on the southern fringe of Newbury:
‘There were three acres of land altogether and a gardener’s cottage, which had its own small garden. The superb view to the south was across the open country of ploughland, meadows and copses typical of the Berkshire-Hampshire border, stretching away four or five miles to the distant line of the Hampshire Downs—the steep escarpment formed by Cottington’s Hill, Cannon Heath Down, Watership Down and Ladle Hill.’
Cottington’s Hill seen from the end of the White Hill car park.
Whilst Cottington’s Hill and its clump have no direct role in Watership Down, they are very much part of the landscape for anyone looking to visit the locations in the novel. Since 1970, the hilltop has been the site of the Hannington Transmitting Station and its 151.9m tall mast. At such a height it is prominent in the local landscape and can be seen from the A34 as it descends onto the northern fringe of Newbury. More importantly, at least for our purposes, it’s highly visible from the top of Watership Down, and even in the fields below. I don’t have an issue with it, though I’ve heard other visitors complaining that it spoils the view.