downland

plural downlands

1. UKAn area of rolling hills (downs), often grassy pasture over chalk or limestone.

   Hail! every distant hill, and downland plain! Your dew-hid beauties Fancy oft unveils;

   1789, Ann Ward Radcliffe, chapter 4, in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, London: T. Hookham, page 93

   5 more examples

   […] I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little.

   1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC

   I traversed the downland Whereon the bleak hill-graves of Chieftains Bulge barren of tree;

   1898, Thomas Hardy, “My Cicely”, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, New York: Harper, page 126

   Shortly after leaving Godshill, a lengthy climb begins through rolling downland country at 1 in 75, easing to 1 in 103.

   1946 July and August, K. Westcott Jones, “Isle of Wight Central Railway—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 244

   The large cement works nearby are served by sidings, and strike a sudden jarring industrial note in the midst of the rural downland scene.

   1953 February, H. A. Vallance, “To Brighton through the Shoreham Gap”, in Railway Magazine, page 82

   I was surprised to see that the plane had been wrecked, not on one of the hefty cliff faces of our mountain, but on a gentle green hillside, merging into downland.

   1958, Muriel Spark, chapter 6, in Robinson, New York: New Directions, published 2003, page 66