Search this site

Official Stage Statistics Route distance – 6.24 miles Duration - 2 hours 28 mins Total ascent – 454 feet Total descent – 549 feet Highest point – 772 feet Fly-through of this stage Logistics Drive to National Trust Avebury car park and park car Walk to Marlborough town centre Catch bus 42 to Avebury Pick up car & drive to Whalebridge Car Park Swindon Stay overnight in Premier Inn Swindon Town Centre My Walk On the final stage of the Wessex Ridgeway (WR) I would cross paths with The Ridgeway, about 1½ miles from Avebury on Overton Down. This would mark the point where the Great Chalk Way alternative route from Win Green finishes. Continuing beyond Overton Down, the WR would continue in a roughly west to east direction across Fyfield Down, Manton Down and Barton Down before descending into Marlborough, the finishing point of this trail. At a little over 6 miles, much of which would be downhill, this would be a very short walk which I could rattle off in just over 2 hours. Had I not had plans for more walks in the area over the next couple of days, it certainly wouldn’t have been worth my while driving all the way from home for a 2 hour walk. My day began with a drive from home to the National Trust car park at Avebury. It wasn’t even 9 o’clock so, apart from the sheep and a couple of dog walkers, I had the henge and stones pretty much to myself before starting my walk. The WR continued up the lane marked on the OS map as ‘Herepath or Green Lane’. heading towards the Ridgeway. A herepath is a military road (literally, an army path) in England, typically dating from the ninth century AD. This particular herepath began as an asphalt road with a few cottages, houses and a farm, before becoming a traditional, rough restricted byway, heading upwards towards the Ridgeway. As the path climbed, the views of the surrounding area just got better and better. Looking back towards Avebury After 1½ miles I reached the top of the hill and the crossing point with the Ridgeway. This marked the end of the alternative route to reach here from Win Green. When I walked the Great Chalk Way in 2025, I reached this point from Win Green by walking the Cranborne Droves Way to Salisbury and then the Sarsen Way beyond Salisbury. Had it not been for my haphazard order of walking the stages, I would be able to say I had now completed both ways of reaching Overton Down from Win Green. As it was, I had 1 more stage to walk, Ludwell to Hindon. I was going to do this walk tomorrow. This high-level map shows the Wessex Ridgeway in light blue, the Cranborne Droves Way in yellow, the Sarsen Way in orange and the Ridgeway in dark blue. I could have stopped here and walked back down the hill to my car but for the sake of just a few miles I wanted to continue to Marlborough, the finish of the WR. The herepath continued across Overton Down and Fyfield Down. It was buttercup season, a gorgeous day, fabulous views, the last miles were all downhill and it was also my birthday, so all was well with the world! As I walked, I could see lots of what I thought were sheep sitting in the sunshine. As I got closer, I realised that they weren’t sheep but sarsen stones! The further I walked the more stones there were. When I got home and Googled Fyfield Down, the Wiki page told me that the down has the best assemblage of sarsen stones in England. The stones are known here as the Grey Wethers for their likeness to sheep when seen from a distance; so I wasn’t the only person to think they were sheep! ‘wether' is an Old English word meaning sheep. I'm not alone - from a distance these stones looked like sheep! So many stones! Fyfield Down comes within Stonehenge and Avebury UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s not only protected as a Scheduled Monument but is also an SSSI. There is evidence on the down of farming, settlement and industry dating back to around 4000 BC. Today there is still farming going on in the shape of grazing cattle. Beyond Fyfield Down, a board informed me I was on land belonging to Manton Park and that I should be on the lookout for galloping horses. Manton Park trains and breeds racehorses. The straight gallop across Manton Down and Barton Down towards Marlborough was over 1 mile long. After crossing a minor road, the path continued alongside Marlborough Golf Club and Marlborough Common before dropping down into Marlborough itself. There is nothing in Marlborough to mark the start/finish of the Wessex Ridgeway; the OS map however shows the trail ending at the library which is at the end of the High Street on the corner of Hyde Lane. It wasn’t even 11:30 by the time I finished. A bit too early to celebrate with a pint, so whilst I waited for the bus back to Avebury, I treated myself to a coffee. Back in Avebury I visited the museum, or to give it its full name, the Alexander Keiller Museum. It houses one of the most important prehistoric archaeological collections in Britain. Alexander Keiller was an archaeologist who once owned Avebury Manor and estate and excavated for over 10 years in the Avebury area between 1925 and 1939. As mentioned, despite having reached Marlborough, because I’d been walking the Wiltshire section of the Wessex Ridgeway in seemingly haphazard stages, I still had one left to go – Ludwell to Hindon – before I could say I’d completed the entire Wessex Ridgeway from Lyme Regis to Marlborough. That would be tomorrow’s walk. For now, I drove to Swindon where I was staying overnight at the Swindon Town Centre Premier Inn. I celebrated my birthday with a couple of pints and a pudding with my evening meal!

What's it all about? When I walked the Wiltshire section of the Wessex Ridgeway in April and May 2026 I was introduced to Imber Range Perimeter Path (IRPP). IRPP more or less does what it says on the tin; it’s a 30 mile, mixed surface circular trail on Salisbury Plain around the Imber Range military training area. Here and there, the Wessex Ridgeway and IRPP share the same path, mainly on the western and northern perimeters of the IRPP. The land within IRPP is normally off limits to the public for obvious reasons. I passed this entry point to the village of Imber when I was walking the Wessex Ridgeway in April 2026 Pretty much in the middle of IRPP is the now-uninhabited village of Imber. The entire civilian population was evicted with 47 days’ notice at the end of 1943 to provide an exercise area for American troops preparing for the invasion of Europe during the WWII. Despite being promised verbally at the time, after the war, villagers were not allowed to return to their homes and the village remains under the control of the MOD. Imber sitting in the middle of IRPP Nearly all the properties in the village have been demolished over the years. St Giles Church is the only building that is still used on certain days of the year. A few more have been patched up as shells and have had tin roofs placed on them to help preserve them. After the war, the village was used extensively for training, particularly preparing soldiers for their duties in the urban environments of Northern Ireland. Several empty house-like buildings were constructed during the 1970s to aid this training training. St Giles Church Imber Every year, a number of days are agreed with the MOD for access by the public to St Giles Church to be made available. These are typically at Easter, the August Bank Holiday weekend, an annual Service of Remembrance in early December, an annual Festival of Carols in December and 2 New Year open days. There is 1 other day in August or September when the church is opened for the public. Since 2009 apart from 2020 (COVID), this day has been used for Imberbus Day. Starting with just 4 buses in 2009, on Imberbus Day, a fleet of red former and current London Transport/TFL double decker buses, plus vehicles from other bus companies, ferries people from Warminster Station to and from Imber across the firing range. This initially proved so successful that services now extend beyond Imber to the villages of Market Lavington, Tilshead and Chitterne, plus other remote locations on Salisbury Plain like New Zealand Farm Camp and Brazen Bottom. An old RT bus. Isn't she a beauty! For the first Imberbus Day in 2009, the organisers got agreement to run the buses as an ordinary local bus service 23A between Warminster and Imber; hence why all the buses have 23A and route details corresponding to this route, including the extensions beyond Imber. This 1965 bus is going to Brazen Bottom via Imber. The attention to detail is superb Imberbus Day 2026 Being more than a bit of a nerd, the opportunity to get on a bus and experience one of our quirkiest bus routes was too great for me to miss, so I decided I would join thousands of other people and discover what Imberbus Day was all about for myself! 23A starts from Warminster Station I got the train to Warminster Station and arrived just after 9:00. The first bus was due to depart for Imber at 9:30. The queue was already about ¼ mile long and growing. Whilst patiently waiting with everyone else, a collector relieved me of £10 cash and handed me my rover ticket for the day along with a free event guide. Amongst other things, the guide carried a full page warning by the MOD of the things I should and shouldn't do on my visit. The queue stretched round the corner for another 200 yards The first bus set off on time and the queue started moving. Due to the large number of people, it was luck of the draw which bus I was told to get on. As it turned out, I ended up on a current 2026 red TFL electric bus – at least it had air con! I was hoping that on the way back I could choose something a little older with more character - ideally a Routemaster of course! The organisers were hoping for about 40 buses to take part this year. RMC1510 did start life as a green London Country bus with its roof intact before later reincarnations! We stopped at ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ at the top of Sack Hill in Warminster and took on board a few more people who’d parked their cars there and were waiting at a bus stand featuring the London Transport roundel. The bus then drove into the training area across Salisbury Plain. It was a bit like being in a safari park but instead of animals we were looking for old tanks used for target practice! As I’d walked a fair amount of IRPP earlier in the year, I already knew the landscape to expect, which was really beautiful. It’s a shame we’re not allowed to walk within it. When we arrived at Imber, the attention to detail by the organisers was clear to see. The bus stops and timetable on them were authentic in every detail. They even had an authentic wooden bus shelter. Things like this are important for nerds! Brilliant! The highlight of the village was St Giles Church, which was heaving with people inside, who were not only viewing the architecture and reading the information panels but also buying refreshments. In 2005 this Grade I listed building from the 14th century was vested in The Churches Conservation Trust for preservation and repair. With assistance from the MOD, the Trust has carried out a comprehensive campaign of repair and conservation to the building and its wall paintings. The information panels in the church made for some fascinating and sad reading. People who were born and lived in Imber before the MOD took over, retained the right to be buried in the churchyard. The last and probably final burial took place in 2023. Richard Fry. Buried here in 1983 Apart from the church, we were allowed to wander up and down the main street, albeit not very far in either direction. The remaining original buildings include the remains of Imber Court, Nag's Head Cottages, the Bell Inn, Seagram's Farm and 2 blocks of terrace council houses that had been built in 1938, 5 years before the village was evacuated. Imber Court Imber Court. Rebuilt after a fire in 1920 only to be taken over by the army in 1943 Nag's Head Cottages The Bell Inn Seagram's Farm Seagram's Farm Seagram's Farm Seagram's Farm The ‘houses’ built by the MOD in the 1970s to represent a Northern Ireland street dominate the main street of the village. The houses built in the 1970s by the MOD for training purposes Having exhausted Imber village and taking into account how hot it was today, plus seeing the very long queues at the bus stops to go on beyond Imber, I decided I’d go back to Warminster; after all, my earlier walks on the Wessex Ridgeway had taken me to places like New Zealand Farm Camp and West Lavington so I knew what to expect. I located the bus stop for Warminster and waited for an open-top bus with spaces on top to turn up. There were certainly plenty of bus companies represented. When one turned up I wasn’t too fussed that it wasn’t an old London Transport Routemaster because I would still have another opportunity to come. I managed to get a seat on top and the drive back to Checkpoint Charlie felt even more like a safari in a game reserve, seeking out more tanks! The council houses built in 1938 - 5 years before the village was evacuated Breathe in & don't scratch the paintwork! Interesting hair colouring! At Checkpoint Charlie (Sack Hill Warminster) I got off and carried on down the road in the direction of Warminster town centre. I’d walked along this road in April for my Heytesbury to Bratton Camp stage of the Wessex Ridgeway, so I knew a 200 yard walk from here led to a footpath on to Battlesbury Hill and Battlesbury Camp hillfort at the top of it. On a gorgeous day I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity of revisiting it – I’d even brough my drone with me. The buildings you can see are army barracks called Waterloo Lines. Battlesbury Camp at the top of Battlesbury Hill. Even from the top of the hill I could see buses going backwards and forwards to Imber. Buses raising the dust Having got all the photos & videos I wanted, I walked back to Checkpoint Charlie at the top of Sack Hill. I let a couple of buses go past before a shiny red RML Routemaster turned up to take me back to the station. The ‘RML’ Routemaster was a high capacity version of the original Routemaster. This one was RML 2735 from 1967/68. It is owned by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, who is a driving force behind the Imberbus project. The attention to detail on this bus is unbelievable, taking me back to pre-decimal currency days when I lived near Harrow and loved going up to London whenever I could. I admit I was both a train and bus spotter at that time!! The conductor even had an original, working ticket machine and ran a ticket off for me. Who remembers these tickets? I for one certainly do! Back at Warminster Station, I was expecting the queue to have gone down but it was still snaking around the corner – just a little shorter than it was at 9:00. Amazing attention to detail Imberbus Day over for me. I'll be back next year What an enjoyable and fascinating experience this had been! I can fully understand why it is so popular. I hope the day raised a lot of money to distribute to the organisers’ charities which include the Friends of St Giles’s Church Imber and the Royal British Legion Poppy Day Appeal. I think I'll have to repeat Imberbus Day in 2027 but with a new strategy. In hindsight it would have been good to travel by bus beyond Imber to one or more of the outlying villages. Next time I'll get the bus to these villages first and finish with Imber itself. Hopefully this revised strategy will result in less queuing.