Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase is Dorset’s largest Landscape Character Area covering parts of every rural district in the county. Stretching from Beaminster in the west and Portesham in the south, it heads steadily north-east to leave the county beside the National Nature Reserve at Martin Down in Hampshire.

As a Landscape Character Area (defined by the Countryside Agency, now Natural England, as a location that carries a distinctive ‘sense of place’ and which is more than a single landscape), Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase could be viewed as Dorset’s spine; its spine in turn being an old turnpike road, the A354, from which it is easiest to appreciate and explore the majority of this large and diverse area.

If the Sixpenny Handley roundabout obliges, the journey along the A354 from Pimperne to Coombe Bissett in Wiltshire can be a rare example of 20 miles of single-carriageway travel in southern England almost devoid of habitation and without the need to change gears at any time, emphasising the relative remoteness of this area.

Roman Roads...

The land may be managed differently now than 2,000 years ago, but this ease of travel would nonetheless have influenced the Romans to have built a network of roads within close proximity of today’s A354 and in whose footprints we now move.

The A354 follows generally high ground, only matched in Dorset by the A37 that itself is based largely upon the line of a Roman road. Other ridgeway routes are today largely unclassified, although locals know that the quickest journeys between Blandford and Shaftesbury and between Dorchester and Sherborne follow the view-encrusted high ground, whilst the respective A-roads snake their steady way through the valleys below.

Ridgeway Ramble...

 Although not the largest (Maiden Castle has this accolade), or the highest (a crown held by Hambledon Hill), Badbury Rings is still a wonderful example of the rich array of Iron Age hillforts and other ancient earthworks for which Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase is famous. 

With manageable ramparts to climb (Hambledon is 300 feet higher after all!), and with several burial mounds (tumuli or barrows) beside today’s entrance drive, Badbury Rings is a great place at which to absorb just how these ancient fortresses were built and why many of them continued to be used by the conquering Romans. (Badbury’s modest 330 feet above sea level can provide, in the right weather conditions, disconcertingly close-up views of the Isle of Wight, so it really is a superb vantage point!)

From Kingston Russell Stone Circle and The Grey Mare and her Colts in the extreme south-west of this Landscape Character Area, together with the almost unbroken run of tumuli that the South West Coast Path passes along Bronkham Hill near Portesham, right up as far as the 5,000 year-old, Neolithic ditches and banks known as the Dorset Cursus that end at the Bokerley Ditch, which in turn defines the north-eastern boundary of Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase, there is an almost unrivalled number and variety of important sites.

Wonderful for wildlife...

Today, the ancient hillforts, along with other steeply-sloping (or scarp) sites, can often be the best for wildlife too, as they have retained the grazed chalk turf that at its very best, can be the most species-rich grassland anywhere in England.

Although an invading force, the Romans did bring stability, lessening the need for security and asking questions of the virtues of living on high, exposed sites. The porous chalk that defines this open and rolling area drains freely, so it was no wonder that the sparkling waters of the crystal-clear streams that can burst into bloom with the flowers of water crowfoot in summer, became a magnet for human habitation. In time, this led to the establishment of some of Dorset’s most famous and attractive villages, often named after the Winterbourne, Tarrant or Piddle that flows through them.

Emulating England itself, the high ground of Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase is to be found in its north and west from which rise many of these rivers and streams. The majority of these flow stoically southwards and eastwards through the Landscape Character Area, as if like a ribcage around the A354.

The valleys in the west are cut deeper and narrower than you will find elsewhere in Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase, leading to ribbon development and blurring of the boundaries of villages such as Piddletrenthide and Piddlehinton. Further east, particularly of the A354, the topography is much gentler, resulting in less need to hug a riverside road and allowing the creation of larger villages such as Bere Regis and Sturminster Marshall.

Water meadows appear...

Only at the point where the Rivers Frome and Stour have developed floodplains and the landscape feature of water meadows have appeared, can the two towns of this Landscape Character Area be found: Dorchester and Blandford Forum. It is also around these lower-lying towns that some of the greatest agricultural changes have occurred as the gentler (dip) slope downs have converted readily from grazing to some of the most productive arable land in southern England.

The chalk rock that underlies Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase may be ideal for propagating downland flora and almost any commercial crop, but it is not a good building material. Neither the irregularly-shaped flint that is found within it, nor the cob that is made from it, are easy to construct with, or maintain. It’s not surprising, therefore, that particularly at its margins, stone and brick from other Landscape Character Areas were used to build houses.

But whatever the medium, particularly if topped-off with that picture-postcard necessity, the thatched roof, the villages of Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase are almost uniformally attractive, with a roll-call of names that goes well beyond the obvious ones of Cerne Abbas, Milton Abbas and Tolpuddle.

The very nature of this Landscape Character Area is expansive views across square mile after square mile of arable fields or open downland, interspersed with intimate, varied valleys. For the lover of trees, there may appear to be few highlights, but dig deeper and solace can be found in large plantations towards Witchampton, around Stubhampton and west of Blandford.

But for the very best sylvan sensations, nothing can beat the ancient coppice-with-standards Chase Woods that straddle the county boundary along Shire Rack, or the nature reserve at Garston Wood, both deep in Cranborne Chase. And it is not too far from these highlights that the finest parklands can be found, adding yet more variety to this most northerly part of the Area.