"The Deverills", as a group, are well signposted from both the A303 and the A350 in the Warminster area of the UK. I suspect that most people treat the signs as a subliminal landmark and have never actually visited the villages. Since I was a bit uncomplimentary about the attitude to public transport access in Paul Deveraux' walk, it behoves me to try and do better. What follows is what I know of the place, much of it from emails from local people - thanks. And if you know better, email me and I'll update this with your information.

Stick around for the public transport bit: the logic of the order here might become apparent in a minute. But by car, the churches are an hour or so's pleasant diversion: well worth the time. The only problems will be finding parking in some places. At Longbridge Deverill, park in the village and walk along the river to the church. If you get lost on the way back, the footpath from the wrong side of the river comes out by No 70 in the main street, just have faith as you head downhill. At Hill Deverill, it's extremely inadvisable to drive up the side-road to see the church. With more than one person in the car, tensions may result during the reverse back onto the main road. Instead, park up and walk along the side road: it becomes private just at the point where you realise there's no room to turn. At Monkton Deverill, the church is hard to find from a vehicle: you have to know it's there even to find it on foot. Drive the long way round the triangle and you'll eventually see it one row back from the road. But, to be honest, unless you're an ecclesiastical train-spotter, the time may be better spent in Kingston Deverill.

There's plenty else to see and do in the area, so you might want a meal or even accommodation. For a valley which until recently supported five full congregations, sadly the only pub actually in the Deverills is the George, at Longbridge Deverill. This is on the main A350 and has a decent selection of drinks, a good food menu and rooms. It also boasts a place to sit and look over the river, making it a good start or finish point for visiting the churches. There is also a restaurant, which opens at weekends. Close by, however, is the Bath Arms at Crockerton. now a quiet village because the A350 bypasses it. This would be my preference, probably because I spend a lot of time in pubs like the George and find the Bath Arms a little more individual. The George, however, stays open all day, which makes timing less critical.

Both the George and the Bath Arms do rooms, and the Bath also has camping and caravanning. There are a couple of Bed-and-Breakfasts in Crockerton as well. Warminster seems like the obvious place to stay if you want more choice, but if you've read this far, you may, like me, have a fairly laid back approach to life. In that case, be warned, the town is best described as "lively" in the evenings. The local military personnel like their music loud and are fond of karaoke and parties. I don't have a problem with this: as with virtually any similar place, it doesn't normally get out of hand and if I'm listening to acid trance I'm partial to it loud myself, preferably with smoke machines and UV lights. But, if I'm getting up to go walking the next day, I also have a preference for getting to sleep before three, since I'm not as young as the lads any more. That said, the rooms at the Angel are fine for the purpose, and bar food is good both at the Bell and the Bath Arms (another one).

Without a car, Warminster is certainly the best starting point. I'd recommend not cycling, for two reasons, one of which is that Wales and West require reservations in advance and occasionally even then turn people away because of train cancellations. The other is that in my opinion the A350 is a good deal safer on foot than on cycles and it's clear that whoever laid out the Wiltshire Cycleway agrees with me). So, assuming no car and no cycle, what's to do? Let's look at combinations of foot, bus and taxi. Yes, bus. I know that in England rural busses are like hen's teeth, but someone with some clout lives somewhere on the route: there are several buses each way on weekdays and two on Saturdays. I count fifteen times more busses than my mum's village gets.

You can do the whole thing on foot: depending on your route it's about sixteen miles each way but it doesn't have to be too challenging. Neither the A350 nor the B3095, which runs south east through the five villages, is a peaceful rural field-walk, but the A350 has footpath all the way and the B3095 traffic seems to be quite responsible by British standards. It's not bad enough to ruin my enjoyment, anyway. On the 350, where it doesn't seem obvious that there's footway, there is, metalled, all the way - if the next bit looks like grass, look around some more. And, the crossing of the A350 to get to Longbridge church is in exactly the right place as well - I wish our council was so sympathetic.

Walking out through Warminster and Crockerton gives you a good idea of how the river fits into the terrain, which you'd never get by car but clearly it's the least important bit. So, making Crockerton or Longbridge your starting off point may seem more sensible. The bus, which leaves from the Market Square rather than the station, runs through both, or you can get a taxi to either from the enormous rank by the station. Doing all five churches from Crockerton is probably about an eight mile round trip. You could reduce that to four, of course, by only walking in one direction. The sensible way to do that is getting the bus to Kingston Deverill, where it conveniently stops opposite the church, and walking back. Unless they change the bus service, there's time for a pint at Crockerton before catching the next one back, but if you time it right and get distracted by the food, the landlord has a tame taxi company who will come out and pick you up without charging extra.

If walking metalled roads isn't your cup of tea at all, the three churches still in use can be done from Kingston to Longbridge without using the road at all. A footpath or bridleway runs roughly parallel on the north side of the road, becoming farm tracks in two places. It leaves from the north side of Kingston Deverill, past the mill-pond and turn right. The hill you're walking is called Cold Kitchen Hill, and don't turn too far left or it turns into a route-march across the top. At Brixton Deverill you can walk down into the village from a large farm. Approaching Longbridge, the route turns into a bridleway (the left hand track round the plantation is dryer but longer). You can get all the way in on bridleways, but it's a trek, much better to go straight up to the Maiden Bradley road and turn right. From the George, walk along the river to the church. Then you'll need a bus or taxi, because the rest can't be done in any even marginally efficient way except on the road. From Kingston to Longbridge you'll get away with a one-inch map: in the other direction it's a bit more tricky and I'd advise a two-and-a-half for safety - it's hard to actually get lost, but easy to end up walking much further than you need.

 
For real purists, the church at Imber is about five miles north-east of Longbridge Deverill, in the middle of a military firing range. There is a walk around the edge of the range from which Imber can be seen. It passes through Chitterne, on the B390, which has places to park and a pub. The walk is sign-posted with green guns on a white background and is quite safe, although if you haven't seen one before, actually reading one of the MoD signs is probably a good idea.