Littlestone wrote:
My parents moved down from the North to Swindon in 1957. I remember my first sight of the Downs (Barbury Castle to be exact) from the front of our new house not far from Coate Water, and even at the age of twelve having a feeling of 'coming home' (aye, a bit of a cliché I know but none-the-less true). As schoolboys, Coate Water, its banks, bushes and streams, became our playground in true Richard Jefferies Bevis style - always with the Downs as a backdrop, and always somehow beckoning.
A reminiscence I can relate to Littlestone (although I was not a schoolboy) having spent 10 formative years in Swindon from the age of eight until seventeen and three quarters when I left home for the big city.After many years as a Londoner I am now living back in Swindon (family ties) and it is only during the last few years that I have got to know the Avebury WHS.
I have to say that my favourite journey is on the 49 bus as it climbs the hill out of Wroughton going towards Avebury ... the Wiltshire downs suddenly open out and the air instantly freshens through the open window of the bus.
Perhaps you missed this:
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/forum/?thread=54144&offset=50