Stage 29 - Wessex Ridgeway - Hindon to Heytesbury - April 29th 2026
- John Tippetts
- Apr 10, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Official Stage Statistics
Route distance – 8.16 miles
Duration - 3 hours 12 mins
Total ascent – 540 feet
Total descent – 611 feet
Highest point – 732 feet
Logistics
Catch trains to Salisbury
Drop off luggage at Nannybag location
Bus 25 to Hindon The Square from Salisbury New Canal (Stop S)
Walk to Heytesbury The Angel
Bus 24 from Heytesbury The Angel to Salisbury Blue Boar Row
Collect luggage
Bus PR 15 to Petersfinger P&R.
Walk 200 yards to Premier Inn Salisbury South
My Walk
This was going to be the second leg along the half of the Wessex Ridgeway that I didn’t walk in 2025 as part of my Great Chalk Way challenge. For anyone who hasn’t been following my Great Chalk Way blog posts, in 2025 I left the Wessex Ridgeway at Win Green and headed east towards Salisbury along the Cranborne Droves Way.
Today’s walk would really be all about a climb up to Great Ridge Wood, followed by a descent into the village of Corton, before following alongside the River Wylye into Heytesbury. At just over 8 miles, this would be one of the shortest legs of the trail. I’d read other people’s blogs of this leg and concluded it would be a pleasant enough walk with a number of fine views but nothing particularly stand-out.
Despite its distance from Hindon (16 miles), Salisbury makes a great hub for much of this half of the Wessex Ridgeway, due mainly to its transport links and in particular, buses. For this reason, I’d booked a night at the Premier Inn Salisbury South hotel to enable me to do this stage and the next stage from Heytesbury to Bratton Camp.
Trump’s reckless and pointless war that had resulted in large rises in the cost of fuel made me think twice about driving the 130 miles from home, so instead I thought I’d experiment with letting the train take the strain for this trip. This worked out really well.
Yes – it took an extra half an hour to get to Salisbury but it was completely stress-free as the trains all ran to time. I saved a lot of money by buying split tickets beforehand rather than a straight through ticket. So, I bought a ticket from Huntingdon (my local station) to Andover (the stop before Salisbury) and another from Andover to Salisbury. This shouldn’t be the case but split tickets can save you a great deal of money on longer journeys as long as you're happy to accept that one or more tickets might be for a specified time (an Advance Single). It’s often the case that the earlier you book such tickets the cheaper they are. As long as the train you get on at the start stops at the intermediate station, you don't have to change trains. There are numerous websites that do the hard work for you to find the best deal. I’ve always used TicketySplit to do this hard work for me.
I pre-booked a drop-off point for my luggage at a shop in Brown Street Salisbury using Nannybag (there are plenty of other businesses that offer the same service and I’ve never had any issues with any of them).
I caught the 11:40 bus 25 from New Canal in the city centre and by 12:30 I was in Hindon, ready for the off. At the end of my walk in Heytesbury I would need to catch the 24 bus back to Salisbury at either 15:16 or 17:04. I knew that if I wanted to make the 15:16 bus I’d have to get a wiggle on. How I’d hate to just miss this bus and have to wait almost two hours for the next one. With this in mind I took a few quick photos of Hindon and set off up the High Street.
A small and quite well camouflaged fingerpost pointed me up a few steps and onto a narrow footpath between fences. After a while I’d well and truly left the village and the path opened up to give me views across to Great Ridge Wood (formerly also known as Chicklade Wood). Having been steadily climbing since setting off, the path then dropped down towards the busy A303, which I crossed when I eventually found a gap in the fast-moving traffic.
Now the walk started in earnest with a steepish climb up towards Great Ridge Wood. The wind was a noticeable feature of this climb!
It was still very much bluebell season and the light woodland through which I was passing was covered in the delicate blue flowers.
The narrow paths gave way to a straight broad track through the wood, with numerous piles of logs on both sides of the track indicating that this part of the wood was being used to farm trees - mainly conifers. The woodland is owned by the Fonthill Estate.
The surface of the track through the wood made for easy and fast walking, which was great as I was conscious that I needed to reach Heytesbury by 15:16! I’d also been following the progress of a huge band of cloud that had been creeping up on me since the start of my walk. Slowly but surely it was catching up!
After a 90° bend in the path I started a slow descent down Rowdean Hill, initially through the woods but this eventually opened up to give great views on both the left and the right across Corton Down. Carrying on, I eventually reached the village of Corton.
After passing under a bridge carrying the Bath to Salisbury railway line, the path eventually reached the River Wylye. Here I got a little confused by which footbridges over the river I had to cross and wasted a few valuable minutes backtracking. Eventually I came across a reassuring Wessex Ridgeway waymarker and I was back on course again.
For the final ½ mile I was walking alongside the river before finally emerging onto Heytesbury High Street a few yards from my bus stop. It was just after 15:00, so I'd averaged 3.3 mph - not bad. Needless to say, after rushing the walk so as not to miss my bus, it was a few minutes late. When it turned up it was full of school students and there was standing room only. I was immediately offered a seat and on this occasion I certainly wasn’t too proud to gratefully accept – what a kind person!! Whilst it was quite rowdy on board, everything was good natured, making for an entertaining journey back to the city.
I retrieved my luggage from the shop I’d left it at earlier in the day and then got the Park & Ride bus to the Premier Inn I was going to stay at that night.
This hadn’t been the most exciting of walks but it was pleasant enough. However, I was really looking forward to tomorrow’s walk from Heytesbury to Bratton Camp which promised ancient earthworks galore and a white horse to boot!
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