Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase, Chalk and Limestone Mixed
Author(s): Jeremy Lake
This is a rolling chalk landscape that forms part of the extensive belt of chalk which stretches across southern England. The Wardour and Blackmoor Vales lie to the northwest, below the steep scarp slopes of the chalk, and the Dorset Heaths lie to the southeast, at the foot of the rolling dip slope. The chalk landscape extends to the north-east into the West Wiltshire Downs and Salisbury Plain Character Area. The downland supports unimproved calcareous grassland, arable downland and woodland while the valleys are linear villages, streams and flood meadows. Of the Character Area, 98% is open country, 87% of which is agricultural land, whilst 9% of the Character Area is woodland and 2% is urban. About 80% of the area falls within the Dorset and the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs). Farmsteads Mapping has been undertaken within the Wiltshire and Cranborne Chase AONB parts of the Character Area.
- Report Number:
- 138/2020
- Series:
- Research Report
- Pages:
- 13
- Keywords:
- Landscape Farmstead Historic
