Watership Down, Hampshire Watership Down, Hampshire Watership Down is a hill, or down, at Ecchinswell in the civil parish of Ecchinswell, Sydmonton and Bishops Green in the English county of Hampshire, as part of the Hampshire Downs. It rises fairly steeply on its northern flank (the scarp side), but to the south the slope is much gentler (the dip side). The Down is best known as the setting for Richard Adams' 1972 novel about rabbits, also called "Watership Down". The area is popular with cyclists and walkers. A bridleway, the Wayfarer's Walk cross county footpath, runs along the ridge of the Down which
Watership Down Latins. "By basing his story on one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Adams taps into a very old myth: the flight from disaster, the heroic refugee in search of a new home, a story that was already over a thousand years old when Virgil told it in 19 BC." It has been suggested that "Watership Down" contains symbolism of several religions, or that the stories of El-ahrairah were meant to mimic some elements of real-world religion. When asked in a 2007 BBC Radio interview about the religious symbolism in the novel, Adams stated that