Watership Down the two girls. Adams's descriptions of wild rabbit behaviour were based on "The Private Life of the Rabbit" (1964), by British naturalist Ronald Lockley. The two later became friends, embarking on an Antarctic tour that became the subject of a co-authored book, "Voyage Through the Antarctic" (A. Lane, 1982). "Watership Down" was rejected seven times before it was accepted by Rex Collings. The one-man London publisher Collings wrote to an associate, "I've just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I'm mad?" The associate did call it "a mad risk," in her
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.