Martinsell Hill is a just a few miles past Malborough and forms part of the Marlborough Downs. It is a spot that I have been to a few times since discovering it on an outing with the Swindon Photographic Societies Landscape Special Interest Group. It has the most wonderful views right across the Pewsey Vale and if you get the light as we did the views and your pictures will go up a notch!
Finding it is really simple, there is a car park located at ///prefer.universal.flap which is about 15 minutes walk from the top. The car park is shown below on Google maps
We arrived at the car park for 0630 in order to get up to the top well in time for the 0717 sunrise and were met with cold and wet conditions, but straight away some amazing potential as the bank of fog was visible from the car park.
The walk up the hill is short and sweet and offers some first opportunities to get some photos in the bag, though for me just on my phone!
We set up at the top of hill and it was time to make some composition decisions as there is a tree on the top that has been photographed a good few million times. The fog was already there and begging to be shot as you can see below.
We stayed for an hour or so and watched the sun rise and bring with it some of the most astonishing light that I have ever seen or photographed.
This is a sight that I will certainly be visiting again in the coming years, though I’m not sure that the light will ever be as nice as it was.
Below are a selection of the shots I got from the day
- Aperture: ƒ/2.2
- Camera: Pixel 7 Pro
- Focal length: 1.95mm
- ISO: 52
- Shutter speed: 1/58s