Talk:Downland

[Untitled]
I've had to take the step of rewriting a lot of this article as it was becoming nonsense.

Please don't do any reverting unless you are sure your facts are correct. I will try and keep an eye on this article to stop it straying away to junk again... It's critical that wikipedia is accurate in places, or at least accurate enough that the casual observer cannot see through the nonsense

-- rant over --- --Davelane 00:09, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

PS -- please correct my typos however :)


 * As it is, I think it is excellent. Well done. Dieter Simon 22:55, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Why did you change the southern England chalk formation from singular to plural? As I understand it the different downs are all part of the same formation, folding followed by erosion of some of the domes and creation of valleys and vales have led it being divided into the separately named downs. --Joe D (t) 23:16, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)  (P.S., to sign your name you need ~, not .)

Ok, thanks for the improvements -- yeah sorry about the username typo I keep doing that because the insert Tags are broken in Konqueror :( erm I see what you mean about the chalk formation(s) and I can't decide to revert my edit or not -- It makes equal sense either way, but Downs being kind of plural it seems to be easier on the reader tho technically less correct in a geological kind of way -- I was thinking of creating an separate article on the south UK downland, which could go into more depth -- theres some good stuff in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica in Downs which could be used for this.

--Davelane 00:09, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Southern England Chalk Formation
I've also thought about a general article on this particular formation, as I've found (and written) in a number of articles on specific areas of downs a list of the other downs in the formation, and replacing the text "this downland is part of the chalk formation that includes the Dorset Downs, Salisbury Plain, Isle of Wight, South Downs" etc etc with "this downland is part of the Southern England Chalk Formation might be one of the many benefits of such an article. I've also noticed the articles Chalk, Downland and Chalk Formation aren't quite as tied together as they could be. Joe D (t) 00:28, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ok I vote for that -- however is there a Geology_of_the_United_Kingdom and Chalk Formation which together skim round the whole subject. Lets create the Southern England Chalk Formation as you suggest and populate it with the 1911 Britannica page on Downs and move some of the stuff around mentioned above oh and we should also include the Weald... --Davelane 00:58, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, as I said in the "White Cliffs" talk, I apologise. I should have known better, they are at the end of the "North Downs Way". Dieter Simon 23:16, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Southern England Chalk Formation
I have removed Watership Down and Eastbourne from the South Downs. Watership Down is between Basingstoke and Newbury, and well to the north of the South Downs. Eastbourne is a town which lies mostly below the eastern end of the South Downs. Instead, I have added Butser Hill and Ditchling Beacon to the examples of parts of the South Downs.

Also, I've added Box Hill as a further example of a place on the North Downs.

--Portnadler 16:16, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Origin of name
Are you certain that 'dun' is Germanic or Norse? I am German and the main german words for hill ist 'Huegel' (Buehl, Biehl, Bichel). 'dun' rather relates to the celtic 'dún', which denotes a hill fortification. The word dune also probably comes from this root.--46.223.7.40 (talk) 20:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

(new comment (that I don't know whwere else to put): isn't the word "downs" also culturally specific to England/UK etc? It's written as if the word "downs" is used worldwide for upland chalk formations. Rob — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.212.18.130 (talk) 17:53, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

(comment 18-Oct-2016) Where I live on the Isle of Wight, we have chalk downlands. Yes, '... Down' is used a lot these days to refer to a hilltop, but I have seen old maps where (eg) the north face of the 'down' has the name of the village that it overlooks and the south face has another name of the village that It overlooks. Older OS maps have some downland names on the slope, rather than on the hilltop. It has been suggested to me that long-distance tracks went along the hill ridges and the traveller went 'down' to his destination village. I don't suppose this will ever be sorted out for sure..... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.64.233.64 (talk) 13:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified
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Content merged from Southern England Chalk Formation article as proposed
Merger of the articles now complete. There are more footnotes now, but even more would be good. The habitat section could probably do with more work. Mikenorton (talk) 20:48, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Map of Downland
User Spinningspark who sadly has passed away had requested Graphics_Lab/Map_workshop a map of the Downland and I have worked on it. We were as good as finished when I learned he passed away but Chipmunkdavis helped me with the last part and it's now uploaded and you can find it here Downland in southern England. Please check the information on it as it is what I have found without any knowledge of this, thanks. --always ping me-- Goran tek-en (talk) 16:33, 27 February 2023 (UTC)