A genuinely strange and brilliant landscape — hundreds of huge sandstone boulders scattered across open down, with skylarks overhead and a real sense of deep time underfoot. Combine with the Devil's Den nearby (a sarsen burial chamber) for a fuller day out.
One of England's oldest National Nature Reserves, established in 1955 on the Marlborough Downs north of Fyfield village. Famous for the Grey Wethers — England's best assemblage of sarsen stones, so called for their resemblance to grazing sheep from a distance. This was the main quarry source for the huge stones used at Avebury and possibly Stonehenge, and one at the western edge still bears grooves thought to be from Neolithic axe-sharpening.
National Nature Reserve — one of the country's finest wildlife sites. Open, but stick to marked trails.