In the early 1970s, Richard Adams’ book Watership Down was published. The controversial story about a group of rabbits seeking a new home was said to be a children’s story that Adams told his daughters. Its dark, sometimes bloody, storyline led others to suggest it had political undertones, like Animal Farm. Whatever the truth, the rabbits face dangers and obstacles on their journey to the promised land. One of those, is a railway.
Watership Down is a real place, close to where Adams lived, at Echinswell, some three miles south of Newbury, in the rolling Berkshire Downs. The railway which Adams invoked in the story was undoubtedly the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line, which despite its piecemeal construction, struck an almost laser-straight route between the Midlands and the south coast ports of Southampton and Portsmouth.
Accordingly, despite being taken over as a backwater of the Great Western Railway, its strategic importance was recognized early in the Second World War, resulting in large stretches of the route being reconstructed to increase capacity, with double track and extended passing loops.
Today, with the railway long gone, the area around Watership Down is perhaps best known for being relocated to Yorkshire in the TV series and movies based on Julian Fellowes’ Despite its Yorkshire setting, the stately home which features in the series
