Wild boar near The Ridgeway

[richnfamous]

I recently walked the Ridgeway for a few days, wild camping under a tarp (or basha).

I stayed one night near Wayland's Smithy, here (Google maps link)

Google Maps

I was in the alley of predominantly beech trees about 200m NE of Waylands Smithy. About 11 pm I heard an animal approach which sounded large, but was obviously neither deer nor badger. It came to within about 20 feet of me (upwind) as I listened - it was pretty dark - and when I flicked on my torch, I could clearly see that it was a wild boar which ran off. It got my heart pounding - it was quite big!

Next morning, I looked for sign, but the ground was quite hard due to the dry spell. However, even though there were beech trees all around, it appeared that something had eaten all the beechnuts.

I've sent details to the folks at Wild Boar in Britain