Literature in the 1970s "Watership Down" by Richard Adams, a juvenile novel about a family of rabbits which found a home in mainstream literary circles. Joseph Heller's dramatic novel of middle age, "Something Happened", was the author's first book since "Catch-22" in 1961. James A. Michener also returned to prominence in the seventies, first with "Chesapeake", a story of four families interwoven throughout their interactions in the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland, and later with "Centennial", a historical novel about a family living in Colorado in the time of the 1870s. In 1976, "Centennial" was adapted to a popular television miniseries. John Jakes would
Ecchinswell Ecchinswell Ecchinswell is a village in the Basingstoke and Deane district of Hampshire, England. Watership Down, location of Richard Adams' novel of the same name, is just south of Ecchinswell. Ladle Hill on Great Litchfield Down, also lies to the south. Part of the hill is a biological SSSI, first notified in 1978. The hill has a partially completed Iron Age hill fort on its summit, and the surrounding area is rich in Iron Age tumuli, enclosures, lynchets and field systems. Ladle Hill and Watership Down are easily accessed from the Wayfarer's Walk cross-county footpath that passes through the parish.