Stage 13 - The Ridgeway - Ashbury to Letcombe Bassett - May 20th 2025
- John Tippetts
- May 11
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 6
Official Stage Statistics
Route distance – 8.10 miles
Total ascent – 567 feet
Total descent – 539 feet
Highest point – 846 feet
Logistics
Walk to Swindon Bus Station
Catch bus 47 to Ashbury Hill
Walk to Letcombe Regis & leave Ridgeway
Walk to Wantage
Catch X36 bus to Didcot Parkway - journey time 42 mins
Catch train to Swindon - £9.55 - journey time 15 mins
Pick up car from Whalebridge Car Park and drive home
NB – Since August 2025 Swindon Bus Station has thankfully closed as buses now leave/arrive from the new public transport hub in Fleming Way
My Walk
This was yet another easy walk and once again the end point was determined by the availability of public transport. In this instance, I was aiming to leave The Ridgeway at the closest spot to Wantage - the rub being that this would require me to walk a further 3 miles to catch a bus! Carrying on to Wantage actually became part of the walk. This really didn’t bother me since it was downhill all the way from The Ridgeway to Wantage.
Today’s walk would take me past 2 Iron Age hillforts, the oldest chalk horse in Britain and a 5000 year old long barrow. All of this and great views along the way.
My residence at the Swindon Town Centre Premier Inn finally came to an end! £234 for 5 nights was a bit of a bargain I thought. After one last cooked breakfast, I loaded my luggage into my car at the Whalebridge Car Park, walked to the bus station and caught the 47 bus to the top of Ashbury Hill where it intersects with The Ridgeway.
In less than a mile along the path I arrived at Wayland’s Smithy – an early Neolithic chambered long barrow, completed around 3430 BC. Various excavations over the year and restorations have resulted in how the site looks today. It is very impressive in a lovely setting surrounded by trees. Modern day Pagans still use the site for ritual purposes.
After another 1½ miles of gentle climbing I reached Uffington Castle at the top of White Horse Hill, the highest point in Oxfordshire at 856 feet. Uffington Castle is another Iron Age hillfort built around 700 BC. It covers about 8 acres.
Also on the slopes of the hill is the Uffington White Horse, a 360 foot long chalk horse that is probably about 3000 years old and the oldest such carving in Britain. Unlike most other chalk horses, the design of this one is very minimalistic! Regular cleaning or ‘scouring’ of the horse is required and this is carried out by volunteers, organised by the National Trust. Because of the angle of the slope the horse is carved into, it isn’t easy to view the horse head on. The best way to view it is from the air.
Below the horse in the valley is Dragon Hill, a striking natural chalk hill with an artificial flattened top. According to legend, this is where St George slew the dragon! A bare patch of chalk on top of the hill where no grass will grow is allegedly where the dragon’s blood spilled.
The valley over which the White Horse looks is called The Manger. The Manger is a strangely shaped valley, which is thought to have been formed by the melting of ice in the last Ice Age. Folklore suggests that the Manger is the supernatural feeding place for the White Horse which would travel from its vantage point on the crest of the hill on moonlit nights!
The views from the top of Whitehorse Hills are absolutely stunning (well – on a sunny day anyway).
Beyond Whitehorse Hill the path continued as a byway which thankfully was dry and not rutted. With the lovely views it made for very pleasant walking. I was in the vicinity of a racehorse trainer’s yard and a number of horses were training on the gallops.
The next feature of note was Hackpen Hill – not to be confused with the Hackpen Hill in Wiltshire that I’d passed a couple of days ago. This is Hackpen Hill near Sparsholt Firs in Oxfordshire. In the valley between The Ridgeway and the top of the hill is a striking natural feature called Crowhole Bottom but is also known as the Devil’s Punchbowl. The top of the hill has 2 clumps of beech trees which from a distance resemble 2 caterpillars!
Another mile and I reached Segsbury Camp (AKA Segsbury Castle). The Ridgeway continued straight on but I chose to leave the trail here. Segsbury Camp is yet another Iron Age hillfort. This one is a bit of a whopper, covering about 30 acres. At about 700 feet above sea level, it’s not as high as some of the others I’d passed. The north of the camp has fantastic views of the Vale of the White Horse.
It is so large that it has a byway running roughly north to south across it. It is this byway that I’d follow down into Letcombe Regis and then on into Wantage. Due to its sheer size, you can’t see the full extent of the fort – you can only see it properly from the air.
The walk from the fort into Letcombe Regis is brilliant as it’s downhill all the way and it’s a pretty steep hill. Lower down it becomes a single track road open to all traffic. I didn’t especially enjoy walking up the hill when I walked The Ridgeway in the opposite direction a couple of years ago! The route into Wantage is well signposted with fingerposts made of the same material as the regular Ridgeway ones. I reached the market place in Wantage at about 2 o’clock. I was a bit peckish so treated myself to a Greggs sausage roll whilst waiting for the bus to Didcot Parkway. At Didcot I caught a train back to Swindon and from there I picked up my car and drove home.
With 142 miles completed, this was the end of my third batch of walks along the Great Chalk Way. From now until I reached Holme-next-the-Sea I wouldn’t need to stay away from home for longer than I night at a time and for a number of stages, day trips from home would become practical. Also, apart from 1 more short walk, the remaining stages would be much longer than my first 3 Ridgeway walks. Happy days!
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