The Chalk Formation of Southern England is a system of chalk downland in the south of England. The formation is perhaps best known for Salisbury Plain, the location of Stonehenge, the Isle of Wight and the twin ridgeways of the North Downs and South Downs. The North Downs in England is a ridge of chalk hills that stretches about 100 miles (160 km) from Hampshire through Surrey (where for part of their course they are known as the Hog's Back) and Kent. The hills are cut by the Wey, Mole, Darent, Medway, and Stour rivers and form the northern part of the Wealden dome, of which the South Downs are their mirror image. They rise at Leith Hill, south of Dorking in Surrey; the highest point in Kent is the top of Westerham Hill. Due to the porous nature of the underlying chalk, the North Downs is generally a treeless landscape.
The North Downs Way often follows the Pilgrims' Way along the foot of the scarp. Such areas are often referred to as Downland. Their main feature is that they are predominantly grassland, which in earlier times provided good grazing for sheep. Two breeds are called South Down and Hampshire Down as a result, although both once cropped the North Downs. Their constant eating of the grass kept down the scrub; the fact that few sheep now occupy the North Downs.
The Pilgrims' Way is reputedly the route taken by pilgrims to the shrine of Thomas Becket from Winchester in Hampshire to Canterbury in Kent, England. Part of the route, from London, was followed by the storytellers in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The route taken by the Way follows a very ancient trackway (500–450 BC) which ran from east to west at the foot of the North Downs hills. It took advantage of the contours and avoided the sticky clay of the land below. The trackway ran the entire length of the North Downs, leading to and from Folkestone: the pilgrims turned north along the River Great Stour valley near Chilham to reach Canterbury.
The trackway outlines the very earliest creatures to arrive in Britain after the Ice Age, crossing land which would later be the English Channel, were grazing animals following the spreading vegetation. The Sweet track in the Glastonbury fens, Somerset is the oldest purpose built road in the world and has been dated to the 3800s BC. Built in the 3800s BC during the Neolithic period, the track consisted of crossed poles of ash, oak and lime (Tilia) which were driven into the waterlogged soil to support a walkway that mainly consists of oak planks laid end-to-end. The original settlement at Wallingford in Oxfordshire dates back to the dawn of British history, when its founders showed a remarkable amount of discrimination in choosing its site. Nestling in a fertile valley on the banks of the River Thames, it was an ideal place for fishing, agriculture and the rearing of cattle. The ancient trackways, in particular the Icknield Way, gave it lines of communication converging on its ford. The remains of the ramparts, which still surround the town, are the successors of the rudimentary fortifications of the old British settlement, were adapted in turn by Roman, Saxon and Norman conquerors.
A similar site is Brownhills once in Staffordshire, now in West Midlands. Brownhills was a meeting point for ancient roads and trackways since prehistoric times. It is thought that the Watling Street was in use before the Romans came, ands what were later called the Chester Road and Coventry Road are also thought to have been ancient trackways.
Towns near the North Downs include Basingstoke in Hampshire, Purley, London, Farnham, Surrey, Guildford, Dorking, Leatherhead, Reigate and Redhill, Surrey; and, in Kent, Sevenoaks, Maidstone, Ashford, Kent, and - where the North Downs meet the English Channel at the famous White Cliffs - Dover.
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