Stage 9 - Sarsen Way - Amesbury to Upavon - May 16th 2025
- John Tippetts
- May 15
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 20
Official Stage Statistics
Route distance – 13.22 miles
Total ascent – 994 feet
Total descent - 926 feet
Highest point – 582 feet
Logistics
Drive to Amesbury and park car in Central Car Park SP4 7JE - MIPermit 700174 - £5.50 a day
Walk to Upavon The Ship
Catch X5/X4 bus to Amesbury 14:21 - 30 mins
Drive to Stonehenge Visitor Centre SP4 7DE. Free parking and entrance for English Heritage and National Trust members
Drive to Whalebridge Car Park in Swindon & park car - SN1 1TN – free for the duration of my stay in Swindon as the barriers weren't working
Walk to Premier Inn Swindon Town Centre and stay overnight
My Walk
After a few days back home it was time for my third batch of walks along the Great Chalk Way. Over the next 5 days my plan for this batch was to reach Overton Hill on the Sarsen Way where I’d meet up with The Ridgeway. I’d then continue along The Ridgeway as far as Letcombe Bassett.
My home for the next few days would be the Swindon Town Centre Premier Inn. I’d used this hotel on a number of previous occasions whilst walking the Thames Path. It’s a new hotel right in the middle of Swindon and of all the Premier Inns I’ve stayed in over the years, this is easily my favourite. The staff here are so friendly and helpful; they were even more than happy for me to have the camera battery charger I'd ordered on Amazon to be addressed to my room (I'd left mine at home)! The hotel is also just 32 steps from Wetherspoons - ideal for steak night and curry night! Finally, the hotel is less than 5 minutes walk away from the Whalebridge Multi-Storey Car Park. For the duration of my stay, parking was free due to the barriers being out of action. I saved more than £50 by parking here. Another tip - the Town Centre hotel is considerably cheaper than the other 2 Swindon Premier Inns!
Despite people’s misgivings about the town, it has excellent road, bus and train links – including its own Magic Roundabout. In fact, at the end of August 2025, the run-down bus station was at last consigned to history and a new ‘Transport Hub’ in Fleming Way opened in its place. Demolition of the bus station is due to start in November 2025 with completion by Christmas. Swindon is well situated for both the Sarsen Way and parts of The Ridgeway.
For the first 10 miles, today’s walk would take me along the valley of the River Avon again through a number of pretty villages. The whole walk lies within Salisbury Plain. Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau within Wiltshire and Hampshire, covering about 300 square miles. The British Army owns about half of the land, 11% of the area of Wiltshire. This land is known as Salisbury Plain Training Area making it the largest military training area in the United Kingdom. There are a number of camps and barracks within the training area and about 47 square miles are used for live firing. The last 3 miles of today’s walk would take me pretty close to a live firing area.
Having stayed overnight in Swindon I began today’s stage by first driving to Amesbury and parking in the car park in the centre of town. I bought myself a sandwich for lunch at the Co-Op.
To the walk itself. It was another warm, sunny day with no clouds. I knew I had to cross the narrow footbridge over the busy A303 Amesbury Bypass, something I wasn’t looking forward to as I have an irrational fear of such narrow bridges. This fear even has a name - gephyrophobia! A hypnotherapist did once try to drive this from the depths of my brain but without success. Part of my planning for any walk I do involves checking if I’m going to have to cross any bridge that might give me an issue; if I find one, I look to see if I can divert away from it. For this footbridge at Amesbury there was no safe alternative so I had to just grin and bear it. Thankfully, with this anxiety out of the way within ½ mile of starting the walk, I could really enjoy my day now.
The path continued alongside fields into Bulford and then into Durrington, where it crossed the River Avon. I lost track of the number of pretty little villages I then passed through, each with its fair share of thatched roof cottages. Across a few more fields and I was in another village with the River Avon either alongside or never very far away.
This carried on until I reached Enford. Up to this point the terrain had been pretty flat but beyond Enford the path climbed quite steeply and this is where I first started noticing MOD Salisbury Plain Military Lands Byelaws signs.
At last, the Sarsen Way stopped tracking the river and instead decided on a dramatic change of scenery to big fields and wide open spaces with views for miles. On a day like today this was absolute bliss. I passed through a quirky farm - Compton Farm - complete with it's own canon and a life-size model of a Great Bustard! I wondered what the relevance of this model was and this got me Googling. A change in farming methods and hunting killed off the last British Bustard in the 1830s. The passion and vision of a former policeman resulted in the founding of the Great Bustard Group in 1998 and the re-introduction of the species to Salisbury Plain. The first birds were imported from Russia and subsequently eggs were imported and hatched from Russia and Spain up until 2019. There are now a fair number of breeding birds in the UK and all chicks are born naturally. Following a visit in 2017 to Salisbury, King Charles became Patron of the group in 2019. The things you learn!
All of a sudden I felt very regimented by the long, wide, almost dead straight chalk bridleways; I was definitely on the MOD’s training land! The OS map showed me that I was going to follow 3 edges of a large square for almost 3 miles rather than the 4th edge which would be the river – interesting!
Despite passing a couple of red danger flags I didn’t hear any live firing. A van did come up to me however and the driver stopped me. I thought I was in trouble for something I’d done. He told me he’d noticed my camera from a short distance away and that’s why he stopped me. He asked me what I was taking photos of. He was unphased when I truthfully answered ‘landscapes’. Uh-oh I thought, is he going to tell me to stop, or worse, confiscate my SD card? In fact, he told me where some deer were grazing and if I was patient I should get some good shots. Phew!
He went on to say that there had been live firing the day before and that the smoke I could see in the not too far distance was from grass fires that had started from ammunition rounds hitting the ground – nothing to worry about!
I was relieved to finally leave the training area and head downhill towards the village of Upavon where this stage would end. I’d made good time today and reached The Ship pub in the village at 13:50; this gave me half an hour before the next bus back to Amesbury was due. On such a gorgeous day I ordered a pint and sat outside in front of the pub eating my sandwich. With the stop right by the pub there was no need to move until the bus turned up.
Back in Amesbury it wasn’t even 3 o’clock, so as a National Trust member I decided I’d drive the short distance to Stonehenge for the nth time. I certainly wouldn’t have done this were I not a member of either NT or English Heritage because of the high cost of entrance and car parking. From the A303, the hundreds of tourists at the stones look like ants! As I have countless photos of the stones from all angles, I just wished there was a stopping place on the A303 to capture pictures of these ants as they looked so funny against the large stones! For today I settled on taking a few more photos of just the stones.
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