The Hanger and the Honeycomb

The Hanger and the Honeycomb,

in 1983 and 1985.

The beech hanger on Watership Down.

From chapter 19, 'Fear in the Dark':

'It consisted almost entirely of well grown beeches. The great, smooth trunks stood motionless in their green shade, the branches spreading flat, one above another in crisp light-dappled tiers. Between them the ground was open and offered hardly any cover. The rabbits were perplexed. They could not make out why the wood was so light and still and why they could see so far between the trees. The continuous, gentle rustling of the beech leaves was unlike the sounds to be heard in a copse of nut-bushes, oak and silver birch.
Moving uncertainly in and out along the edge of the hanger, they looked out over the empty stretches of grass beyond.'

Sorry, this should be the beech tree on Watership Down.

The branches of the beech tree on Watership Down.

Watership Down is owned, along with the Sydmonton estate of which it is part, by
Andrew Lloyd Webber. So far, he's not shown
any sign of writing a musical version of
Watership Down.

Though with this much inspiration on
your doorstep wouldn't you be tempted?

Blackberry knows all sorts of interesting facts about Watership Down.

This is the large beech tree that stands close to the north-east corner of the beech hanger on Watership Down. It has suffered a lot in the past few years, and is now badly damaged.

Its trunk is adorned with the carved messages of fans and readers. If any one spot marks the centre of the Watership Down world then this is it.

It is not the tree portrayed in the film, at least it looks quite unlike it. Also the Honeycomb was not dug in its roots but in those of other beech trees. Adams describes the warren itself as at the north-east corner of the hanger, some ten to twenty metres away to the left of the photo above, not here on its north side. I thus actually don't have a photo of the actual Watership Down warren site! Yet that is...

Looking up into the beech tree on Watership Down.

I was standing by this tree when I heard a familiar voice approaching from behind the row of smaller trees that shield the hanger from the rest of the down. For a moment I thought I was hearing things when a border collie bounded up and sniffed me. 'Come away Tetter.' the voice said as its owner came into view. 'Hello,' I said tentatively back. 'Good afternoon.' came the reply. He walked past me to stand by the fence through which the photograph above was taken. He turned to his companion, '..and this is the beech hanger. You can see how easy it was for Hazel to run down through it at the end of the book.' As with the quotations from the book I use green text to highlight Richard Adams' own words....

There are rabbits on Watership Down, however they live close to the north-west corner of the hanger. Time once more to move on back to the road in the last leg of our walk. Click here to view the hanger from the west.

Take a look at the beech hanger and the Honeycomb warren site on Google maps.

Click Bigwig here to return to select another location. It might be best to avoid his ears, his fleas live there!