Walbury Hill

About Walbury Hill

Walbury Hill is the highest natural ground in South East England at 297 m, a summit of the North Wessex Downs. It lies along the north-facing ridgeline of the North Hampshire Downs section, with Inkpen Hill to the west and Combe Hill and Pilot Hill to the east; Hungerford is about seven kilometres to the northwest.

The Iron Age hill fort of Walbury Camp occupies the top, and Combe Gibbet stands westward on Gallows Down between Walbury and Inkpen Hills. The flanks fall within the Inkpen and Walbury Hills SSSI, one of three nationally important chalk grasslands in the North Wessex Downs alongside Rushmore and Conholt Downs and Hog's Hole. A triangulation pillar marks the summit, but it sits on private land with no public access; a byway gives access to the north of it.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Walbury Hill (CC BY-SA 4.0). Heights, prominence and grid references come from the Database of British & Irish Hills, not from Wikipedia.

Access rights here

General position for England — local byelaws, seasonal restrictions and closures can override it. Full details: access rights in England · check another location.

Daylight at this summit today

Sunrise

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Sunset

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Daylight

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Civil twilight ends

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Computed astronomically for 51.352, -1.465. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is ground 2m NE of trig point. On broad or flat summits the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.

Survey method

Abney level

Record revised

21-Jul-24

Drop measured from

SU 0550 5900 · 108.1 m

Classification history: Hampshire county top moved from Walbury Hill summit to hill 5461 Pilot Hill following the 1889 boundary changes. Berkshire county top moved from Walbury Hill boundary (hill 19419) to the summit..

Survey notes are field observations recorded in the Database of British & Irish Hills (v18.3, CC BY 4.0) by the hill-surveying community.

Long-distance paths past this hill

3 waymarked long-distance routes run within 2.5 km of the summit — useful if you are linking this hill into a longer walk, or want a made path for the approach.

Route lines © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); distance from the summit computed by OpenFell.

The Walbury Hill group

2 other listed summits sit in the same prominence group, with Walbury Hill as the independent hill at its head.

Grouping is by prominence alone: a summit belongs to the nearest higher Marilyn it connects to without a deeper intervening col. Over a large massif that can gather hills no one would walk in a single day, and which few would describe as parts of the same mountain — it is a measure of independence, not a suggested route.

Nearest listed peaks