On the Real Watership Down
Beacon Hill
A well known Hampshire landmark referred to in Tales From Watership Down.
The cold continued throughout the following day, and next night the frost was even more bitter. It was clear to all Hazel’s rabbits that now they were in for the winter cold of which Kehaar had warned them. From then on, keen frosts lasted all day and each night were intensified under empty, clear skies. From horizon to horizon the stars glittered with an icy brilliance, and below them nothing moved on the frozen ground.
Birds and animals either starved or else left the Down to try their luck below, in the fields and gardens of Ecchinswell or Kingsclere. The owls and kestrels perforce followed their prey, and from Beacon Hill to Cottington’s Clump the high ridges were deserted.
Tales From Watership Down; Chapter Fourteen—Flyairth
Horses at Old Burghclere, underneath Beacon Hill. September 2025.
If there is any local landmark to Watership Down whose exclusion from the novel is surprising, it is Beacon Hill. Nonetheless, it merits three mentions within Tales From Watership Down. In Chapter Thirteen, The New Warren, Kehaar flies to the Hill whilst seeking out a site to establish an overspill warren. In Chapter Fifteen, Flyairth, it is named as one of the hilltops deserted by animals in freezing weather. Finally, in Chapter Nineteen, Campion, we learn that Bigwig joined a patrol to the west of the Hill.
Beacon Hill is one of many sharing the same name in England. As with the majority of others, this Beacon Hill was the site of a signal fire that would be lit to warn of an approaching enemy. On its summit is an ancient hillfort, in which George Herbert, 4th Lord of Carnarvon (and financier of Howard Carter’s expedition to the tomb of Tutankhamun) was buried in 1923.
Beacon Hill. September 2025.
Much of Beacon Hill is open access land and can be freely accessed by walkers. If you don’t fancy the steep walk up, the Hill and its fort can be seen from across the A34 from Ladle Hill. Alternatively, head south on the A34 from Newbury. Close to Burghclere, the road passes between Beacon Hill and the contiguous escarpment that stretches from Ladle Hill to Cottington’s Hill.