On the Real Watership Down
Ladle Hill
A beautiful hilltop along the ridge from Watership Down.
He’s always doing things like that,’ said Vilthuril. ‘The other day he told me what a river looked like and said he’d seen it in a dream. It’s Fiver’s blood, you know. It’s only to be expected with Fiver’s blood.’
‘Fiver’s blood?’ said Hazel. ‘Well, as long as we’ve got some of that I dare say we’ll be all right. But you know, it’s turning chilly here, isn’t it? Come on, let’s go down, and hear the rest of that story in a good, warm burrow. Look, there’s Fiver over on the bank now. Who’s going to get to him first?’
A few minutes later there was not a rabbit to be seen on the down. The sun sank below Ladle Hill and the autumn stars began to shine in the darkening east—Perseus and the Pleiades, Cassiopeia, faint Pisces and the great square of Pegasus. The wind freshened, and soon myriads of dry beech leaves were filling the ditches and hollows and blowing in gusts across the dark miles of open grass. Underground, the story continued.
Chapter Fifty—And Last
Across the A34 to Beacon Hill.
There’s a touch of satisfied autumnal cosiness to the conclusion of Chapter Fifty, And Last. The rabbits head underground to listen to Vilthuril, Fiver’s mate, continue a story of El-Ahrairah and a cursed warren. Above ground, the sun goes down behind Ladle Hill, the last of the north-facing hills along the escarpment west of the A34.
Heading south on that same dual-carriageway, you see Ladle Hill on your left, just before the escarpment turns to run parallel with you.
The sun going down over Hare Warren Down and Ladle Hill, seen from the field underneath Watership Down.
On my visit to Ladle Hill in late July 2025, the harvest was underway to the south, though the combines hadn’t yet reached the rather over-ripe barley fields alongside a round barrow and incomplete hillfort. With an overcast sky, the combination of light brown and grey gave the landscape an unexpectedly open and eerie feel. It felt as isolated as anywhere I’ve been on my travels around the Watership Down landscape.
A little on from the hillfort, you come to where the Wayfarer’s Walk turns left and begins to head downhill to the village of Litchfield. The landscape here is stunning with the heights of Beacon Hill facing you across the A34.
Crop dust from a combine harvester to the south.
