Product Description

The Ridgeway follows one of the oldest 'green roads' in Europe. It runs for 87 miles (140 km) from Overton Hill in the west, across the Marlborough Downs and the Vale of the White Horse, to Ivinghoe Beacon on the northern edge of the Chilterns, this is the complete, official guide for the long-distance walker or the weekend stroller. All you need is this one book. National Trail Guides are the official guidebooks to the fifteen National Trails in England and Wales and are published in association with Natural England, the official body charged with developing and maintaining the Trails.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53631 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

Lacks practical information for getting out on the trail
This book is very well printed on good paper, sturdily bound, and includes quality reproductions of tiny sections of the OS maps, all as expected on a book listed at 1p under £13.

I live near the Ridgeway, and bought the book in order to get ideas for daytrips on the trail.

The book describes in detail a 136 kilometre long trail. However, it lacks an overview map to allow you to locate where you are on the trail. There is a "key map", but that map is wrong. Example: you want to go for a walk near Aylesbury. According to the key map, the description for this section starts on Chapter 11, but the book only contains six chapters! Presumably an earlier edition of the book contained 12 chapters which were merged to form six, while neglecting to update the key map.

The book also contains descriptions of circular walks which can be taken in the viscinity of the trail, but only gives a vague idea of where they are. For example: "Begin at a point where a byway crosses the Ridgeway", with no indication of how to get there.

I was disappointed at the lack of practical information in the book. For example, near where I live is an approximately 15km long stretch of trail without any parking areas indicated on the OS map. It might have been nice to give some clues about accessing these areas.

Also lacking is any description of the condition of the trail, whether suitable for cycling, prams, etc. Due to a shocking legal loophole, motor vehicles are allowed on much of the trail, and more information on how to avoid these would have been welcome.

Yes, the book's historical descriptions and so on are informative, but they're not much use if I can't get to the sites in the first place.

I give the book one star because I expected it to enable me to choose walks, and tackle the logistics of getting to the walks. I don't feel the book has helped me in these areas. Really, I'm as well off just studying the OS map (which I had to buy).

the Ridgeway National Trail Guide
This guide may be very good if you intend to do the walk from Overton Hill to Ivinghoe but if as I started at Ivinghoe to walk to Overton Hill I found it of no use at all. However at the path is well signed no guide is necessary. The Harvey's Map that we carried was more than adequate and clearly showed the route.

Excellent book, essential guide
This book is an essential guide for walking the Ridgeway, although several of the pubs along the way are now closed or being refurbished this book came in very handy along the way. Contains essentail information including water points along the way, although maybe a short section about the shops in each town as you pass would prove useful for the walker carrying all their own supplies.