North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers a substantial part of the chalk hills of southern England, spanning four counties (Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire), forming an oval-shaped region 40 miles wide, approximately between the towns of Andover, Basingstoke, Reading, Swindon and Devises, though cut away in the east to exclude the area around Newbury, and merging to the northeast with the Chilterns AONB, which contains similar landscapes.

With an area of 670 square miles, this is the third largest AONB in England, behind the Cotswolds and North Pennines. North Wessex Downs is a relatively recent designation, an amalgamation of previously better-known features including the Marlborough Downs, the Vale of Pewsey, the Lambourn Downs, the Berkshire Downs and the North Hampshire Downs.

The AONB contains one major wooded area, Savernake Forest, but most is farmland and grassland, including large expanses of flower-rich meadows, concentrated across the steeper slopes of the downs, in particular the south side of the Vale of White Horse (the edge of the Lambourn Downs), the western edge of the Marlborough Downs and the land to the south of the River Kennet, in Hampshire. The short, calcareous grassland shelters a wide range of rare plant species such as early gentian, tuberous thistle and burnt-tip orchid, together with many butterflies and other insects; much is protected as local and national nature reserves, including Fyfield Down, High Clear Down, Morgan's Hill and Pewesy Downs.

Numerous ancient sites are scattered across the higher reaches of the North Wessex Downs, most famous the henge at Avebury, while more recent features include eight white horse figures, carved into the chalk slopes.