Cranborne Chase
Cranborne Chase (grid reference ST970180) is a chalk plateau in central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. The plateau is part of the English Chalk Formation and is adjacent to Salisbury Plain and the West Wiltshire Downs in the north, and the Dorset Downs to the south west. The scarp slope of the hills faces the Blackmore Vale to the west, and to some extent the Vale of Wardour to the north. The chalk gently slopes south and dips under clays and gravels.
An area of 379 square miles (981 square kilometres) of the Cranborne Chase and the West Wiltshire Downs has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), the sixth largest AONB in the country. The highest point is Win Green, in Wiltshire, at 910 ft (277 m).
History and archaeology
The downland has a long history with many earthworks and archaeology from the Neolithic age onwards. The dense woodland originally covering the downs would have gradually been cleared by the first farmers, but would have grown back repeatedly over the centuries as soils became exhausted and the agricultural carrying capacity of the land was exceeded several times over the course of six millennia. Much of the area therefore remained wooded from the Middle Ages until World War II.
There are many Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments, including the henge monuments at Knowlton and the remains of a number of Iron Age settlements on the downs, most notably the hill fort at Badbury Rings (Vindocladia). There is a Roman villa which has been dug by Time Team.[1] During the Saxon invasion of England the Romano-British kept the invaders out of Dorset by building Bokerley Dyke, a defensive ditch, across the Roman Road that runs across the downs from Dorchester to Old Sarum.
The downs have been sparsely populated since Saxon times, largely preserving archaeology until World War II when the need for agricultural land outweighed the archaeological importance. It was here that Augustus Pitt Rivers developed modern archaeological field work in the 19th century.
The downs are named after the village Cranborne, founded by the Saxons, which had a manor house and a small monastery. The word "chase" comes from the hunts, frequented by royalty (including Kings John, Henry VIII and James I), which took place on the downs. The Chase was owned by the Earl of Gloucester until it passed to King John by his marriage to Gloucester's daughter, Avisa. The land remained in the hands of the Angevin and Tudor monarchs until James I granted the rights to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury.
Much of the Chase is still owned by large estates such as Kingston Lacy.
Geography
Hills
The landscape of Cranborne Chase is remarkably varied, its most dramatic scenery being near the boundary between Dorset and Wiltshire where the chalk downland rises sharply to the rounded summits of Breeze Hill, with the hairpin bends of the B3081 climbing Zig Zag Hill on its northwestern flanks, and Win Green. Nearby, another prominent top, Melbury Hill above Melbury Abbas, "appears almost like an island rising above the flat, sea-like expanses of" Compton Abbas airfield.[2]
Further south are two more summits on an outlier of the Chase that define its southern limits: Hambledon and Hod Hills.[2] [3]
Biodiversity
An area of 1,115 acres (451 ha) of Cranborne Chase has been notified as a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, notification initially taking place in 1975.
As some of the wooded areas in the chase are centuries old, they possess a diverse ground flora that is associated with such sites. The area is one of the richest in southern England for numbers of lichen species; over 160 have been recorded.[4]
See also
- Bowerchalke - Geological profile of a Lower Greensand inlier on chalklands of Cranborne Chase
References
- ↑ "Channel4.com - Time Team - Cranborne Chase". 2005-02-19. Archived from the original on 2005-02-19. Retrieved 2011-12-04.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The face of Dorset — Cranborne Chase at www.dorsetlife.co.uk. Accessed on 24 Mar 2013.
- ↑ Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase at www.naturalengland.org.uk. Accessed on 24 Mar 2013.
- ↑ Plantlife
- Pitt-Rivers, Michael, 1968. Dorset. London: Faber & Faber.
External links
- Countryside Agency: Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONB
- AONB dedicated website
- Dorset County Council: Cranborne Chase AONB
- English Nature citation sheet for Cranborne Chase
- Cranborne Chase AONB Woodfair
Coordinates: 50°57′41″N 2°02′39″W / 50.96142°N 2.04409°W