There isn’t much hidden about Cley Hill. How many people travel past it every day and gaze up at this peculiar lump of a hill. Or maybe they don’t look at it all as it’s so familiar. I must admit every time I’ve driven past it I’ve thought that I really must go up there one day. So on this walk I had the opportunity to do just that.

Once again I am indebted to Louise Powell of Circular Wiltshire Walks for this route. Usually I adapt her routes but on this occasion I have followed it turn by turn as it was exactly what I was looking for. I’ve been meaning to visit St Katherine’s church for a long time and when I was asked to photograph it as part of a bigger project, Louise’s route was the perfect way to combine this with a walk in Savernake Forest.

Salisbury doesn’t exactly meet the criteria for Hidden Wiltshire, and yet there are a number of pockets around the city that few visitors are aware of. These areas can contain unexpected hidden gems and history. So in this blog, I would like to introduce you to one such location and why, at the time of writing, getting to it by foot is on the minds of local residents.

In the space of 8 miles/13 kms this walk includes a Neolithic causewayed enclosure, a little known stone circle, a windmill mound, three Medieval churches, (a pub), and the site of an abandoned Medieval village. It was a lot to cram in during the short daylight hours available to us.

This winter's walk around the village of Chilmark and the Monarch's Way had a profound effect on me. Perhaps it was due to the history of the place, its wonderful views and the fact that the stone used in the building of Salisbury Cathedral was quarried from this place. The area is well worth a visit.

This is an area we’ve covered several times before at Hidden Wiltshire and you will find links to earlier blogs below. But I wanted to focus more on the natural landscape and the Ridgeway in this blog. For that reason this will be a slightly shorter blog as there were no churches or historic buildings to crawl over.

For the purists amongst you, you might want to look away as this walk spends much of its time outside of Wiltshire. But it starts and finishes in our county and for part of the time crosses countryside where the borders were frequently moved, such that places found themselves changing county over the years. But to help you make your decision whether to continue reading we will be visiting Somerset, and Bath and North East Somerset as well as Wiltshire.

This is a wonderful and diverse walk with lots of interest and varied history across the ages. It explores the village of Netherhampton and its famous hoard, Salisbury Racecourse and the lost tragic village of Washern.

I’ve been meaning to explore the downs to the north of Mere for years. The many folds in the landscape caused by man’s presence over millennia combined with the forces of nature make this an enticing landscape. And on the day we visited, the low autumn sun on a bright clear day just served to highlight the profile of the countless earthworks, ditches and ripples even more.

I very nearly didn’t write this blog for reasons that will become apparent. I’ve long intended to visit the New Forest in autumn but since it is mostly in Hampshire my commitment to writing for Hidden Wiltshire meant it was always on the back burner. But then it dawned on me that part of the forest does just creep into Wiltshire.

Just like Tolkien's hobbit, I have been on a journey. A discovery of belonging and an increase in my desire to ensure accessibility and maintenance of the Wiltshire public rights of way. For it is only when walking them do you see the true beauty of the area and find a deep connection to the place.

I’ve long wanted to do a walk in this area as it’s somewhere I used to cycle a lot. Our bike club would often ride up the long climb through Gare Hill and a hush would descend on the group, not just because we were struggling for breath, but because it always felt slightly eerie – there never seemed to be any birdsong. The countryside here is quite different to much of the rest of Wiltshire. No big open skies but deep valleys and forest.

We revisit to Stourhead and the mysterious Selwood Triangle in order to find a lost byway and a location of where a miracle took place.

But the real jewel at Littlecote is the extraordinary mosaic. It was extensively and carefully restored at great cost and covered by a roof to protect it from the worst of the weather. For me though, the wonderful thing is that this important scheduled monument is open to all and at no cost. Isn’t this how it should be for many more of our ancient monuments?

A walk around the new bridleway in the beautiful landscape that surrounds the villages of Pitton and Firsdown.

The first leg of this walk takes in the canal towpath and then turns north to return to Wootton Rivers via the Savernake Forest, somewhere I have long intended to explore but somehow never have. As ever my route took in a church.

Artists old and new are associated with the area around the settlements of East, West and Middle Winterslow. It has been their inspiration and now on a recent visit I can see why.

An escapist quest to walk along the length of the Shire Rack the ancient boundary that exists between Wiltshire and Dorset. A mystical area of the Cranborne Chase National Landscape where creatures and heroes of myths and legends must surely still exist.

When was the last time you saw a hedge that had been layed? A rare sight I would suggest. An ever rarer sight is a hedge layer

The glory of the Plain is that in areas that are not red flagged the walker is free to roam anywhere other than woodland