From here we may continue more or less
along the summits of the chalk uplands until the famous Inkpen, or
Ingpen, Beacon is reached, in an isolated corner of north-western
Berkshire. But alas! the former glory, on the map, of the Beacon has
departed. Until quite recently it was thought that this, the highest
section of the chalk in England, exceeded that mystic 1,000 feet that
gives such a glamour to the mere hill and makes of it a local
"mountain." An added slur was cast upon Inkpen in the handing to the
neighbouring Walbury Hill Camp of an additional five feet by these
interfering Ordnance surveyors. The new maps now read--Walbury Camp
959 feet; Inkpen, 954. But the loss of 18 yards or so does not seem to
have altered the glorious view from the flat-topped Down or to have
made its air less sparkling. The grand wooded vista down the Kennet
valley toward Newbury is a sharp contrast to the bare uplands north
and south. Walbury Camp, a fine prehistoric entrenchment, is distinct
from Walbury Hill, slightly lower, on which is Combe Gallows, a relic
of the past kept in constant repair by a neighbouring farmer as a
condition of his land tenure.
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