Watership Down the story was "nothing like that at all." Adams said that the rabbits in Watership Down did not worship, however, "they believed passionately in El-ahrairah". Adams explained that he meant the book to be, "only a made-up story... in no sense an allegory or parable or any kind of political myth. I simply wrote down a story I told to my little girls". Instead, he explained, the "let-in" religious stories of El-ahrairah were meant more as legendary tales, similar to a rabbit Robin Hood, and that these stories were interspersed throughout the book as humorous interjections to the often "grim"
Kingsclere and its sign proclaims it a "15th C. Rooming Inn". The nearby Watership Down is the setting for the 1972 novel of the same name by Richard Adams. Watership Down was also the site of the 1982 World Field Archery Championship put on by the Overton Black Arrows archery club from the nearby village of Overton. The actress Lavinia Fenton, most famous for her role as the first Polly Peachum in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, was lover and then wife of Charles Powlett, 3rd Duke of Bolton of the parish. Their eldest son, Rev. Charles Powlett, was briefly vicar