I came upon this as I was taking a MASSIVE detour around the Stonehenge traffic jams today. Cley Hill, right next to Longleat. Geographically speaking it’s on the edge of Somerset and Wiltshire, and curiously not made of clay (as the name suggests) but chalk. I saw it some way off as I came over a rise through a village and said to myself; Have to climb that one! Fortunately the road I was on went right to it, so we (the Dog and I) hopped out of the car and within moments were at the top and looking west to Somerset and east to Wiltshire. This view is looking east and you can make out Salisbury plane in the distance. Bright sunshine battled with patchy (but dense) clouds, so I sat and waited for a couple of broken up ones to roll past before taking a few shots. Light was too harsh for anything spectacular, it being 4pm-ish, but in black and white the contrasts the light and dark made, as they shifted across the open grounds below, really show up well.

[In true Hitchhikers Guide fashion] Wikipedia has this to say about Cley Hill (grid reference ST838449) a prominent hill near Warminster in Wiltshire, England. A 26.6 hectare area of chalk grassland at Cley Hill was notified as a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1975. Mostly Harmless. Unless you don’t like climbing hills.

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