The North Wessex Downs are an area of chalk downland landscapes, largely turfed by grassland, located in the southern English counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. The North Wessex Downs has been designated as a National Landscape (formerly known as Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or AONB) since 1972.
The North Wessex Downs is a modern name coined with the creation of the AONB to encompass the area of chalk and limestone hills better known by various overlapping local names, including the Berkshire Downs, the North Hampshire Downs, the White Horse Hills, the Lambourn Downs, the Marlborough Downs, the Vale of Pewsey and Savernake Forest.
