For over 5,000 years, Britons have used The Ridgeway – for everything from a trading route to cattle droves to trail running – making it Britain’s oldest road. Starting at Overton Hill in Wiltshire, near the ancient stone circle at Avebury, the 87-mile route passes numerous Prehistoric, Iron Age and Bronze Age landmarks as a time-travelling pathway.
Not only will you find one of the largest megalithic stone circles in the world at Avebury, but also one of Britain’s oldest gravesites, the West Kennet Long Barrow. A little further along The Ridgeway, you’ll come across Uffington White Horse – a 3,000-year-old chalk hill figure in Oxford. Dotted all along are a seemingly countless number of hillforts from Barbury Castle to Pulpit Hill.
It’s not all old stuff associated with The Ridgeway, however. In the 20th Century, the landscape of Britain’s oldest road inspired British surrealist painter, Paul Nash and Lord of the Rings author, JRR Tolkien. More recently than that, The Ridgeway’s endpoint, Ivinghoe Beacon, became the crash site of the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
History fans will be pleased to hear The Ridgeway has connections with everyone from King Alfred the Great – confronting Vikings at the Battle of Ashdown – to Sir Winston Churchill (who wrote some of his famous radio speeches at the Prime Minister’s Chequers country house) though. But you don’t need to know any of that to enjoy the nature of The Ridgeway.
Paul Nash described the view from Whiteleaf Hill as ‘the finest view in the south of England’. But far-reaching views of rolling hillsides are a common feature of The Ridgeway. An eclectic landscape also offers chalk streams, beech woodlands and bumpy Bronze Age barrows – with the chance of spotting everything from kingfishers, hares, butterflies, skylarks, trout, and water voles, along the way.
Where should I stop for a drink?
What is a good long walk without a well-earned pint at the end of it? Some historic pubs along the oldest road in Britain include The Red Lion at Avebury where five ghosts are said to haunt the pub (Paul Nash painted another Red Lion pub on The Ridgeway at Whiteleaf); The Plough near Princes Risborough is the nearest pub to the Prime Minister’s country home; Waggon & Horses in Beckhampton, which was mentioned in Charles Dickens’ novel ‘Pickwick Papers”’
It only takes an hour to drive from Bristol to Overton Hill, which is the beginning of The Ridgeway.