forward as a Queen Elizabeth II field in the hope of protecting it forever. The Whitchurch Town Council maintains a couple of children's playgrounds: one in Kingsley Park, and the other at the bottom of Alliston Way between the schools. Other play areas are at Caesar's Way and Park View. Environment The River Test throughout the town, including its various branches and banks, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Much of the land to the south of the town centre is old water meadow. One site is administered by Whitchurch Millennium Green Trust, a registered charity. This has an old dam used for flooding the meadow in the past and a sluice and wooden sheep dip hundreds of years old. Its ponds have viewing platforms. The old maps show how it was fed by springs. One key spring still exists at Ninesprings Nursery on The Weir. It originally fed what is now thought to be some of the oldest watercress beds in Britain. They are shown on the 1810 map and the 1872 and 1876 maps show them clearly also the history of how the River Test was diverted. The site now grows aquatic plants that are distributed nationally. Whitchurch is the Gateway to the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB); a rich mosaic of rolling chalk hills, woodland and pasture. An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is a designated exceptional landscape whose distinctive character and natural beauty are precious enough to be safeguarded in the national interest. The North Wessex Downs make up the third largest of Britain's 46 AONBs. First Place Winner in BT Competition Whitchurch was ranked first in the BT "Race to Infinity" competition that finished on 31 December 2010. The win meant that the residents served from the exchange (01256-89 prefix) would be one of the first ten rural areas in Britain to be upgraded to fibre-optic technology. The hope was that this would bring faster Internet speeds sooner to residences, businesses, schools and doctors both in the town itself and to its surrounding villages and the rural communities in-between. Town website The town website is administered by the Whitchurch Association on behalf of the town residents. Any resident is able to contribute, and the site's ethos is non-political, following that of the Whitchurch Association. Notable people Richard Adams, the author of Watership Down and The Plague Dogs, lived in