Wiltshire is roughly rectangular in shape, measuring about 54 miles from north to south and 34 from east to west. Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Hampshire and Berkshire bound Wiltshire's perimeter. In 1974 the part of Berkshire (the more northerly part) was transferred to Oxfordshire.

Much of the county consists of chalk hills, which on a map mark a broad strip across the county from north east to south west, with lower lying land to the north west and south east.

The higher hills are in the north, with a steep escarpment overlooking the Vale of the White Horse and the infant Thames in the very north of the county. Further west the escarpment, still high and steep, looks over the somewhat broader lush valley of the Bristol Avon.

To the south the altitude drops more gently across Salisbury Plain to the low lying valleys of the rivers which meet in and around Salisbury after cutting through the chalk hills to the city's north and west.

From Salisbury the combined rivers flow, as the Salisbury or Hampshire Avon, to the sea at Christchurch. The high land of Salisbury Plain is divided from the even higher Marlborough Downs to its north by the Vale of Pewsey, which runs roughly west to east across the county to merge with the valley of the River Kennet as it continues eastwards.

Wiltshire is larger than the average English county in area, but smaller than average in population, a direct result of its largely agricultural nature and the inhospitable nature of the chalk hills. It has been referred to as the county of chalk and cheese, the latter being a reference to the traditional dairy farming of the lower lying areas.

The uplands have been traditionally used for sheep, the main basis for the county's, and at one time the country's, prosperity. From early times wool was one of the main exports, following which manufacture of woollen goods became the staple industry on which many Wiltshire towns became prosperous, especially those in the west such as Trowbridge, Devizes, Melksham and Bradford-on-Avon.

With the chalk being porous, water has always been a scarce commodity on the hills, so all the main towns are in the low-land parts, mostly in the band round the north and west, with Salisbury and Wilton in the smaller piece of lowland in the south east corner.

Villages are strung in lines along the fringes of the hills where springs emerge at the junction of the porous chalk and the lower lying impermeable clays, and along the rivers whose valleys cut through the hills, but the hilltops are practically uninhabited.

The biggest town by far is Swindon, in the north east corner, which is the only major industrial centre and was found by a recent government survey to be the most prosperous town in the UK. Second biggest is Salisbury, the only city in Wiltshire, and third the present county town Trowbridge in the west, where the County Council offices and the County Record Office are situated.

Nowhere in England will you find a multitude of unspoilt picturesque villages in Wiltshire. One of the pleasures of exploring this county, is the splendour and vision which arrives around the bending roads.

The best known villages are Castle Combe and Lacock, both well known for their examples of mellow stone architecture with little change from their original construction. The latter is protected from devlopement by the National Trust. A visit to Castle Combe will quickly make you realise that Wiltshire is fortunate and proud to still have exquisite architecture, deservedly been voted "the prettiest vaillage in England".