The Real Watership Down
Times of IndiaWorld Reviewer/SIGHTSEEING, UNITED KINGDOM/ Updated : May 23, 2014, 15:15 IST
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Synopsis
Watership Down seems to be a popular literary pilgrimage. The locations are all real but the bad news is the rabbit population isn’t. While you can expect to see a few lone bunnies you won’t come across the honeycomb of warrens ch … Read more
Watership Down seems to be a popular literary pilgrimage. The locations are all real but the bad news is the rabbit population isn’t. While you can expect to see a few lone bunnies you won’t come across the honeycomb of warrens children or childish readers will be expecting. Read less

I grew up with Watership Down, which is one of the few children’s works that treats readers like adults. Richard Adams who wrote the book, set it around Newbury, where he grew up in and give detailed enough surroundings for David to be able to be quite specific, however he wrote the book when living in London (he visited Newbury at the weekends) so I would be surprised if some of David’s aspersions are based on his strong desire to fully map the story (but there is an excellent map in some versions of the book which provides a good initial guide). Without going into details, Watership Down is set in Hampshire around the Enborne River (which the rabbits of the Sandleford Warren cross on their rafts) along the Berkshire boundary and Newtown Common past real life Nuthanger Farm (which still exists). Watership Down seems to be a popular literary pilgrimage. The locations are all real but the bad news is the rabbit population isn’t. While you can expect to see a few lone bunnies you won’t come across the honeycomb of warrens children or childish readers will be expecting.
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