and ridgeways

As you puff up to the hilltop path, you might wonder how this was ever the easiest way across a landscape. But the Britain of 5000 years ago – when these ridgeways were first worn atop the chalk scarps of southern England – was a very different place. Swampy wildwood knotted across the valleys and plains and you’d have wished for a machete and stout wellies to battle your way around the lowlands. A bit of sweat to reach the better-drained and less-vegetated upland would have seemed a small price to pay, with expansive views to boot. Today, the Ridgeway National Trail is the centrepiece of these ancient trackways, an 87-mile path that surfs the hills from the stone circle of Avebury in Wiltshire to the hillfort of Ivinghoe Beacon in the Chilterns (below). It makes a historic week on foot, visiting Stone Age burial barrows, a series of Iron Age fortifications, and a 3000-year old horse etched in the chalk slope at Uffington. For a shorter option, you can easily sample a highlight in a day (see below). For a longer adventure, try the 362-mile Greater Ridgeway which extends down to the Dorset coast and up into Norfolk.

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