Wiltshire

Megalithic stone circles, ancient tracks and hillforts. The Great Chalk Way has it all and more. Dixe Wills time-travels into antiquity on a two-day wander in Wiltshire

- Dixe Wills

A small group of metal detectorists is searching a huge windswept field near Charlbury Hill in Wiltshire.

“What are you looking for?” I call out. Andy, Clive and Adam - all members of the Wyvern Historical & Detecting Society - stop sweeping the soil for a few moments and come over for a chat. “We find Roman coins occasionally,” Andy tells me, “and there are lots of artefacts from the First World War.”

The answer comes as something a jolt. That’s because this particular field is on the Ridgeway, one of England’s oldest known pathways, and I’ve been strolling along it all morning under a warm summer sun with my head in the Neolithic Era. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that Romans would have been busy dropping their coins up here or that this slice of Wiltshire had had a role in the “war to end all wars”.

Rather thrillingly, there are experts who believe the Ridgeway may even have formed a section of England’s first ever coast-to-coast path. Fast-forward several millennia and that route has been given a name: the Great Chalk Way (greatchalkway.org.uk). Those who walk it find themselves following what may have been a dramatic prehistoric long-distance footpath.