Holiday Cottages In North Wessex Downs

The North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) reaches across the whole of western Berkshire, the open chalk country known as the Berkshire Downs, and it is where the county's downland holiday cottages tend to sit. This is famous racehorse country, with the gallops of the Lambourn valley and the wide arable downs rolling north to the Ridgeway. Designated in 1972 and covering about 1,730 square kilometres in all, it is one of the largest AONBs in England, and the Berkshire share takes in the Downs villages and the Kennet valley.

The North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Designated in 1972 and now branded as the North Wessex Downs National Landscape, this is one of the largest protected landscapes of its kind in England, covering about 1,730 square kilometres across several counties; the part on this page lies in Berkshire. The defining feature is open chalk downland, high rolling grassland and big arable fields grazed and ridden across, with the Lambourn Downs in the north and the green valleys of the Kennet and the Lambourn cutting through. This is one of the great training grounds for racehorses in Britain, and the early-morning strings on the gallops are part of the character of the place. It stays a working countryside of farms, studs and small towns, looked after through a partnership of local councils and agencies.

Where to stay in the North Wessex Downs AONB

The cottages are spread through the Downs villages and the towns of the Kennet valley, and the Berkshire part of the area takes in several of them:

• Lambourn: the racing village at the heart of the Lambourn Downs, known as the Valley of the Racehorse for its many training yards and gallops
• Hungerford: a market town on the Kennet and Avon Canal, full of antique shops, at the foot of the downs
• East Ilsley: a former sheep-fair and racing village high on the downs near the Ridgeway
• Kintbury: a quiet canal-side village in the Kennet valley between Hungerford and Newbury

Landscape and landmarks

The Berkshire end of the landscape is open downland at its purest, the high rolling chalk of the Lambourn Downs patterned with gallops, beech clumps and ancient tracks. Scattered across it are the marks of deep history: Bronze Age burial mounds on the skylines, old droving routes and the racing yards that have used this turf for centuries. To the north the downs fall away towards the Thames, and to the south they drop into the gentle Kennet valley, where the river and the Kennet and Avon Canal run side by side through water meadows. It is big, quiet, horizon-filling country, easy to walk and easy to lose yourself in.

Walking the North Wessex Downs

The great walk here is the Ridgeway, the national trail that runs along the crest of the chalk and is often called Britain's oldest road, a route used for some 5,000 years. It crosses the high Berkshire Downs above the Lambourn and Ilsley villages, so a cottage on this side of the area puts you within easy reach of it, with the gallops below and views north over the Thames Valley. The going is firm chalk track and open grass, breezy along the ridge, passing burial mounds and old droveways the whole way.