Lying to the east of Somerset and Avon is the largely rural county of Wiltshire. There are just three urban areas of any size - Swindon, Salisbury and Warminster - but neither Salisbury nor Warminster can be called large.
In the west of the county is a part of the Cotswolds, a chain of hills well-known for its honey-coloured stone and attractive villages. Possibly the most attractive of these villages in Wiltshire is Castle Combe, which has been described as the prettiest village in England.
Salisbury (pronounced 'Saulsberry') is home to the tallest church spire in England - all 404 feet of it towering over the cathedral and the city. One of the best views is from across the water meadows to the south west of the city, a view made famous by a painting by John Constable. On the subject of views, the original Magna Carta can be viewed at Salisbury cathedral.
North of Salisbury is the immense (for England) stretch of Salisbury Plain, a chalk plateau covering 300 square miles. Once given over mainly to sheep grazing, much of the Plain is now under army control and used as tank training grounds and artillery ranges. A bird long extinct in England, the great bustard, is being successfully re-introduced here.
The Plain is the destination of large numbers of people at each solstice when they journey to England's first world heritage site - Stonehenge. There are varying suggestions about the age of this stone circle and, as far as I know, nobody has yet worked out just how these enormous lumps of rock were transported 160 miles from Pembrokeshire in Wales. Twenty miles away is the village of Avebury, which is surrounded by another large henge, also a world heritage site under a joint listing with Stonehenge.
Given that so much of Wiltshire comprises wind-swept Salisbury Plain, my choice of picture is of that ancient monument, Stonhenge.
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