Everything about Cranborne Chase totally explained
Cranborne Chase 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, the
Dorset Downs to the south west and the
South Downs running south east. The
scarp slope of the hills is to west, such as at
Shaftesbury, and to some extent along the edge of the
Vale of Wardour to the north. The chalk gently slopes south and dips under the clays and gravels.
981 square kilometres (379 mile²) of
Cranborne Chase and the West Wiltshire Downs is 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 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 (External Link
). 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.
Biodiversity
An area of 451.4
hectares of Cranborne Chase has been
notified as a
biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, notification initially taking place in 1975.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Cranborne Chase'.
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