Avebury Stone Circle The antiquary John Aubrey, describing Avebury to Charles II said that it, "...does as much exceed in greatness the renowned Stonehenge as a Cathedral doeth a parish Church..." But it is not just size that gives this impression... Bishop's Cannings It would be easy to pass by Bishop's Cannings, just off the old Bath to London coach-road between Devizes and Silbury Hill, were it not for the church steeple of St. Mary the Virgin prominent above the surrounding trees and undulating downland. The church is a fine example of the Early English style... Bishopstone Strip Lynchets The département of Indre-et-Loire, where I now live, is similar to Wiltshire in that the landscape is gently rolling and ideal for farming and cycling. There are also notable deposits of flint which were traded throughout much of Europe in ancient times... Bradford-on-Avon The real prosperity of the town began in the 14th century... it's wealth based on the cloth industry. In 1540 Leyland described Bradford-on-Avon as being "made all of stone"... a reflection of the wealth created by its manufacturers and merchants... Corn Stooks Corn stooks are still an occasional sight at the end of summer in the fields alongside the minor roads between the old villages of Market Lavington, Easterton Sands, Urchfont and Rushall. There are three good reasons why this is so... Great Bedwyn Stone Museum The one name synonymous with stonemasonry in Wiltshire is Lloyd. For over 200 years the same family have been cutting, chiselling, carving and creating with stone in Great Bedwyn, a quiet village straddling the Kennet and Avon Canal. Many exhibits are fixed to the side of the main house... Great Ridgeway The clumps of trees on the horizon which so typify the openness of Wiltshire, and the shelter afforded by them to Great Ridgeway foot travellers of this millennium, would not have been there when the first tribes of people used this route across southern England four-and-a-half-thousand years ago... Lyneham Banks The spirits of Lyneham Banks have probably borne witness to more changes in transportation methods during the 20th century than anywhere else in Wiltshire. The route from Swindon to Chippenham has descended the hillside the steep way... Malmesbury - tallest and smallest Malmesbury is a hill-top town and was a centre of learning second only to Canterbury through the teachings of Maildulph the Irish monk who arrived in the seventh century. One of his pupils was Aldhelm who became an Abbot of Malmesbury in AD 672. His canonisation made Malmesbury famous... Malmesbury River Walk During any season of the year this short, one-to-two-to-tree hour stroll, with pubs and cafés awaiting you in the town, is a delight. I used to see plenty of wildlife including rabbits, hares and fox... too many birds to remember from woodpeckers to kingfishers... Maud Heath's Causeway The sparsely populated area between the hamlets of Christian Malford, Langley Burrell and Kellaways does not appear to have a need for defensive works against marauding tribes... since the Danes captured Chippenham in 878. To understand the reason you have to turn the calendar back many years... Ricardo's Tomb at Hardenhuish In the churchyard, and even more classical in style than the church itself, is the monumental tomb of David Ricardo the economist who died in 1823. Designed by William Pitts, the marble piece is severely Greek in style, but has a gaiety with the four almost naked maidens standing around a central Corinthian column... Roundway Down and Devizes Roundway Down is a plateau... but it stops abruptly, facing the open Wiltshire plain, a geographical feature that partly led to the unexpected defeat of superior Parliamentarian forces in one of the shortest battles of the English Civil War... Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge One product of the hand of man I prefer to see on Salisbury Plain is corn... the four elemental substances of fire, air, earth and water are underestimated in their contribution to this bountiful crop for they do, with man, all depend on one another... Savernake Forest From pre-Norman times Savernake was a Royal Forest found suitable for the "Sport of Kings"... but in 1547 it passed into private hands, being the only ancient forest to do so. In the early eighteenth century Thomas Lord Bruce, the Earl of Ailesbury... Silbury Hill Whilst excavations dating as far back as 1776 and as recent as this millennium have partially succeeded in determining how Silbury Hill was constructed and approximately when, there are no clues as to why... only estimates of how long it took and... Urchfont Village Pond The village of Urchfont, pronounced Ushent locally, has a fascinating lineage of names derived from Eardrices-funt "Eardric's fountain" in the 1086 Domesday Book and which is just one of 111 different spellings discovered so far... Westbury White Horse The "art of cutting white horses", or Leucippotomy, has been practised since the Early Iron Age and takes man's art from the dark, hidden cave wall to the exposed, sunlit hillside. Where more visible a place could there be to do this... Wilton Windmill The Domesday Book of 1086 listed 197 mills in Wiltshire... all powered by water and worked either in the finishing of woollen cloth (known as fulling) or grinding corn. Wiltshire being an agricultural county almost all the mills were involved with the latter. By the late 12th century wind power began to be used on a wider scale... Wiltshire's Open Gardens The gardens in the scheme are included for their excellence of design, mélange of varieties and display of colour, as well as the enthusiasm of their creators... rather than for their cream teas and Bath buns... which to us were certainly of equal importance!

The historical, geographical and literary area known as Wessex is as disputed today as during the times of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Wessex was one of seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Heptarchy), named after the West Saxons, and existed as a kingdom from the 6th to 9th centuries and as an Earldom from 1016 to 1066.

Perhaps more people think of the fictionalised Wessex of Thomas Hardy, the English writer and poet, rather than the local government boundaries or counties. Hardy used the following names for what are current counties - North Wessex (Berkshire), Lower Wessex (Devon), South Wessex (Dorset), Upper Wessex (Hampshire), Outer Wessex (Somerset), Mid-Wessex (Wiltshire), and Off-Wessex (Cornwall). It would be nice to see those names adopted generally!