The name 'Wessex' is full of echoes of the ancient past - of Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill - and of the regional novels of Thomas Hardy. The ploughing up of traditional downland pastures and the removal of ancient hedgerows, woodlands and wetlands from the vales have changed some of Hardy's windswept grasslands and dairy-rich lowlands. Even so, Wessex contains some fine countryside and a wealth of monuments of different ages. Besides the glories of the prehistoric legacy, there is much else to absorb in the later landscape: the great churches of Salisbury Cathedral and Sherborne Abbey.