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The Needles rocks and lighthouse (with helipad on top) represent one of England's most iconic views, used as a BBC visual due to its instant recognisability. Along with Old Harry Rocks opposite, the two promontories form the entrance to the great bay which shelters the coast from the open sea, making the bayshore westward past Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole suitable for the development of seaside resorts. The view southward towards and out past The Needles - westernmost point of the Isle of Wight - was called 'the finest outlook in England' by former Prime Minister Lord Bute. He built almost the first seaside villa on the protected bayshore - since rebuilt on a grander scale as Highcliffe Castle - which began the late Georgian fashion for 'marine villas' and thus led to the establishment of spa-resorts all around the bay.
Now however, it seems a case of 'enjoy the view while it lasts' as the world's largest industrial windpark looms on the horizon, promoted by various interests as the answer to our energy needs. In extent, it will occupy part of 3 counties, be larger than the Isle of Wight, with its hundreds of turbine masts taller than anything in London. Planning objections have led to its northern edge being shaved back so that it no longer obstructs east-west sightlines between Wight and the mainland; but the north-south vista, that open horizon stretching into the distance, will no longer exist. The new Navitus Bay industrial park will also sit atop the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage site, and last month Unesco wrote to Whitehall that if the giant turbine park goes ahead, World Heritage status may be withdrawn from the Jurassic Coast.

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Spring is by definition a transitional season, starting out as February late-winter weather and ending up early summer as May dawns. The result is a mixed period of unpredictable weather in March, reflecting the saying 'March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb'. Now the spring equinox [21 March] is here, the storms and floods that dominated the forecasts for months having finally ended 2-3 weeks ago. People can at long last get out and go for a walk on riverbanks (in this case, as pictured here, the Lower Stour at Tuckton) that were underwater a short while ago. In the past, the lower stretches would sometimes freeze right over and become crossable on foot, cf here. Now we have sunny intervals by day with freezing temperatures at night, which at least is a start.

Winter Skies, Poole Harbour

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This winter will no doubt remembered for its storm-floods and sea-surges, the worst in over 20 years. Thousands were left without power over the midwinter holidays, overflowing riverbanks are forcing evacuations of entire communities, and police are warning the public to stay away from the seafront after several people were swept off esplanades.
Pictured here is Poole Harbour, the largest safe haven for boats on England’s south-central coast, from leisure craft to cross-Channel ferries. It has survived the recent weather relatively unscathed, but now faces a different kind of storm brewing. The Crown Estate’s Commissioners are considering a plan to build a road and a bridge to turn one of Poole Harbour’s islands into a car park – as an accessory for yet another new planned marina.
The Crown Estate is the official Crown corporation which owns, among other vast holdings, almost the entire coastal seabed, and operates under an Act which says their Commissioners’ authority cannot be challenged. This includes their licensing out areas to commercial interests, in this case marinas, in this case whether or not the Poole Harbout Commissioners approve. At anchorages all around the coast, the endless clinking sound of yacht cleats and lines as they repeatedly strike the aluminium masts is a permanent feature of life, as many yachts remain at anchor year-round, but mooring fees are a money-spinner for local harbour authorities and yacht clubs.
Local officials and residents are already concerned about plans to build the world's largest wind-turbine 'park' out in Poole Bay affecting tourism adversely and even jeopardising the Jurassic Coast’s World Heritage Site status. The sudden revelation, on the eve of the holidays, of the new plan with a January consultation deadline, to turn one of the Harbour’s islands into a car park has pushed the matter into the headlines, despite the protestations of the various parties behind the process they are merely following procedure, and the plans cannot be divulged as they are commercially confidential.
This also follows on news that none of the various sites proposed by county Wildlife Trusts along here, the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast, are included in the current list of Marine Conservation Zones announced in late November. This was followed in turn by another revelation that the County Council has just quietly approved another plan to explore for gas outside the harbour mouth, in Poole Bay, adjacent to where the giant wind-turbine site is planned.
There is already another longstanding industrial development invisible in the background of this photo, a hidden oilfield called Wytch Farm (the oil derricks etc are hidden by trees). For five decades this hidden site has been Western Europe’s largest onshore oilfield, pumping up 17,000 barrels a day of crude from a pipe extending a mile down and another mile or so out into the bay, and this autumn had its operating license extended for another 21 years.
However the prospect of the new technique of fracking, which can cause earthquakes and change the water table, has led to renewed concern. The new drilling site is just off Durlston Country Park, a noted local dolphin-watching site. A similar situation in the Bristol Channel has demonstrated that the presence of such wildlife may prove a complication for developers, for wildlife often has more statutory protections than human residents.

PS Waverley, Bournemouth Pier
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Paddle steamers were a vital link in the opening up of British seaside resorts. Where the bay was too shallow for them to dock, long piers had to be built, starting 200 years ago with a mile-long wooden one at Ryde on north Wight (begun 1813). These 'pleasure steamers' were often operated by railway companies and sometimes the pier would be broadened to run a train line to the pierhead, as at Ryde, where a train still runs direct to the resorts on the south coast of Wight. With the decline of the railways, the heyday of the pleasure steamer ended, but one was saved and now operates around the entire English coast: the PS Waverley, built in 1947. A brass plaque aboard explains this is actually a replica-replacement for the 1899-built original, which sailed the Clyde prewar but was sunk in 1940 while evacuating troops from Dunkirk. The Waverley is the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world and is claimed to be 'probably the most photographed ship in the world.'
Its seagoing profile is a familiar sight in this area. The restored Waverley sails the south-central coast every September, docking at local resorts like Ryde, Bournemouth, Weymouth and Swanage (the photo illustrating the Wikipedia article on the boat's history, here , shows it in Swanage Bay). For those who prefer a scenic shot, there is an alternative clickable one below, showing Waverley departing Sandown Bay on the south coast of Wight on one of its September day excursions.

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The current heatwave has driven millions to the south coast in search of cooling waters. Normally English summer is defined as 3 sunny days then a thunderstorm, but it has been sunny since Midsummer Day on June 24 and for over a week now it has been hotter than for years (nearly 30 degrees C. in places), with no relief in sight. That 'relief' of course is at least partial cloud cover offering intervals of shade from the glare, as seen here.
While millions seem content to lie baking on packed beaches, the more adventurously minded have gone on as well as in the water, on water-craft of various kinds, and nowhere is more suitable for this on the south coast than Poole Harbour. Recently the harbour and surrounding area have been featured on tv in the Ben Fogle country-lifestyle series Harbour Lives [ITV-player link here], no doubt soon out on DVD. Poole has also just been chosen as the venue to host European Maritime Day 2017, which means as well as the official 2-day conference on ' Blue Growth ' etc, there will be several days of tie-in festival activities around the harbour - yacht and power-boat races, sailing ships, flotillas of small vessels, a pageant, etc.

While the traditional claim this is the world's largest natural harbour is not correct, within its 98-mile circumference it does offer a considerable variety of scenery and activities. Here, looking SW from Rockley Heath in the NW corner, the harbour's biggest peninsula, Arne, is visible. Less well-known than Brownsea Island [to the left of the picture], this is a quiet nature-reserve area of trails, wetland [see image below] and lagoon, with its own 'secret' bay, deer and much bird-life (RSPB bird-watching hide by lagoon). In the background to the right is another popular tourism destination, the Purbecks between Corfe Castle and Swanage, which we've covered here and its various on-screen appearances of the Purbecks area, here.

West Bay from Thorncombe Beacon
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Visitor interest in this locality has shot up due to what the press has called the 'Broadchurch effect', after the ITV murder-mystery serial Broadchurch. The drama attracted around 9 million viewers and enquiries and visits to the various West Dorset tourism websites have suddenly spiked. Only the seafront scenes were in fact shot here, as West Bay itself was too small to provide the range of locations needed to portray the fictional town of Broadchurch (the rest was Clevedon in Somerset), but these were scenic enough to promote a surge in visitor interest.
East Cliff Beach where the body was found and the sandstone cliffs above became the series' iconic image, but the local seafront cafes, hotel and even caravan park have also attracted interest and begun promoting themselves with the tagline 'as seen on Broadchurch,' and a tour of tie-in locations will begin when the DVD is released in May.
The photo above, looking eastward down the Jurassic Coast, is taken from Thorncombe hill just where the beacon (a replica of one built to warn of the approach of the Spanish Armada) seen in Broadchurch's finale actually stands. (Film and tv dramas often perform a certain sleight-of-hand with locations, e.g. the Broadchurch Police Station in the round harbour-front building is actually part of a cafe.) In the distance below, West Bay can be made out with its twin piers enclosing its harbour-mouth and marina, and the sandstone cliffs above East Cliff Beach. In between is Eype, on whose slopes a clifftop scene was filmed. This part of the Jurassic Coast is where white chalk cliffs give way to red sandstone ones stretching westward to become the red earth of Devon. Beyond West Bay in the far distance is Abbotsbury with its mediaeval swannery by the Fleet lagoon enclosed by Chesil Bank. Real footage of the Fleet is seen in the film The Dam Busters showing the actual test drops made here, and this is also the setting of the 1898 smuggling classic Moonfleet. More recently Ian McEwan's award-winning tragic novella On Chesil Beach was set at a hotel here. Out of shot in the other direction, looking westward, is Golden Cap, the South Coast's highest headland, and beyond that, Lyme Regis and Devon.
This type of visitor interest is generally classed as literary tourism, and for those wanting to explore this theme farther, the locality has associations from Jane Austen onwards. Lyme Regis with its stone Cobb pier is best known for associated scenes in her 1818 Persuasion and later in local resident John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman. West Bay itself was seen in an earlier tv series, BBC's Harbour Lights, which utilised the same locations such as the Bridport Arms Hotel to portray the fictional 'Bridehaven'as well as other sites in the surrounding area. East Cliff Beach was previously used for the scene shown behind the titles of every episode of BBC's The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, where Reggie leaves his clothes on the beach to stage his faked suicide.
Thomas Hardy called West Bay 'Port Bredy', as it is essentially the harbour for the market town of Bridport. The larger town of Bridport just inland has been striving in recent years to establish a reputation as a centre for artists, craftspeople, writers and other creative types, and for the last ten years has been the adopted home town of Broadchurch's creator Chris Chibnall. He normally writes more fantasy-oriented drama like Life On Mars, Torchwood and Camelot, but says he conceived Broadchurch as his love letter to this scenic area and is planning a followup drama.

Hurst Castle, Solent Narrows
This sea fort is currently in the news because shifting coastal erosion patterns mean that waves are now lapping at its foundations, threatening to undermine it. It is of considerable historic interest to visitors for it is a development of several centuries of military fortification to control the Solent Narrows between West Wight and the mainland. From here, there is a view east along the Solent, west into Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole Bays, south to the Isle of Wight, and north over the New Forest-Lymington area. Seen here from a westward-looking angle, in fact it sits on a shingle spit which reaches most of the way southward to Wight, leaving only a narrow passage for shipping. (This also made attack from its landward side difficult.)
The original Hurst Castle, a moated 12-sided tower, was one of a string built in the era of Henry VIII. Henry's ongoing interest in divorce and re-marriage to obtain a male heir put him at odds with the Catholic church, and Catholic France and Spain regularly threatened raids, if not actual invasion. The Solent/Southampton Water passage was regarded as a vulnerable avenue of attack here, and other 1540s Henrician castles were built nearby, several of which, like Calshot and Yarmouth, survive on Southampton Water and Wight's Solent coast. Unlike mediaeval castles, the Henrician castles were forts in the more modern sense - intended as artillery emplacements, with projecting bastions to hold cannon so it could command the approaches on all sides. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Hurst was used as a garrison and gaol (Charles I was imprisoned here in 1648 en route to his trial and execution) and a naval base to discourage smuggling.
As it had become dilapidated, it was repaired during the Napoleonic invasion scare, and then in the 1860s, when (for reasons now obscure) England's defence minister Lord Palmerston again feared France would invade, an extensive set of fortifications nicknamed the Palmerston Follies were built all along the coast. The original fort was built over, with two large brick wing extensions which housed much heavier guns. The first of several lighthouses there was erected in 1786, but the one visible here at right also dates to the 1860s. In the Second World War, the fort saw service as an anti-aircraft battery etc. during Luftwaffe raids on the Southampton docks. Hurst Castle is today looked after by English Heritage [details here]. Due to the narrow passage, a good view can be obtained of it (as above) from any passing boat (eastward-looking angle pictured below), while its interior can be explored by landing from the passenger boat from Keyhaven, or on foot, along the narrow shingle spit which was part of its natural defenses.

Abbey Gardens, Winchester
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Currrently, for the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice, Hampshire tourism agencies are promoting visitor sites in and around around Winchester, where the author died in 1817 and is buried (in the Cathedral), with a guide to surrounding landmarks, such as nearby Chawton (where she lived, and the Austen Museum is). Outside of organised package tours for keen 'Janeites' (where participants sometimes dress in Regency costume), there may not be the hoped-for upsurge in visitors that tourism chiefs are hoping for, as it's only a recent Austen screen adaptation that really bumps up visitor numbers. Nevertheless, Winchester is worth seeing in and for itself via a walkabout tour. A City Tourism leaflet outlines a recommended 'Sunset' walk around the town centre, starting at the statue of King Alfred [visible at left in image above], this being the old capital of England after he established his kingdom of Wessex.
While trying to plan for a sunset is difficult in England even in summer, the route can be walked at any time of day, week, or month. It includes St Giles Hill viewpoint, from where you can see over the town [inset below], before ending at Abbey Gardens, above. Oddly, it doesn't include the Castle Great Hall (with its Arthurian 'Round Table'), ruined Wolvesey Palace, the old town's cobbled back streets, Winchester Cathedral (where Jane is buried), or the house where she died (on College Street, recently seen in the film Les Miserables); but with a town map these can easily be worked into the route as slight detours.

Swans Over Poole Harbour
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"…the swan /Brings winter on his wing" goes the old weather adage. Watching vees of swans, geese, ducks and other birds flying south was long a reliable indicator of the onset of winter. These days the picture is more confused. The "first day of winter," i.e. the day of the winter solstice [Dec 21st], which some claimed (citing the Mayan calendar) would be the world's last, in the event proved a sunny moment amidst a stormy season which has officialdom advising us not to travel over Xmas, due to widespread flooding.
This autumn, the RSPB reported thousands of migrating Scandinavian birds dying off the coast, the unusually adverse weather exhausting them just before they could reach the safety of the English coast. England's south coast has always offered a first or last stopping place for waterbirds flying north or south in spring or autumn, and a large part of the local seasonal economy was built around shooting and trapping migratory game birds en route. The region has plenty of waterways, like Poole Harbour, above, but artificial "decoy" ponds were also built to lure flocks of ducks and other waterbirds to where they could be netted more easily. Swans are the largest members of the duck family, and were bred for centuries by monks like those at Abbotsbury, who liked to have roast swan on meat-free Fridays. (In the mediaeval monastic rule-book, waterbirds like swans were conveniently classed as fish, not meat.)
If you want to see swans close up, Britain's largest nesting colony of mute swans is still just along the coast, at Abbotsbury Swannery on Fleet Lagoon (where the 'Dam Busters' bomb was tested). In fact, it is the world's only managed colony of such birds. Today, these swans are protected, the property of the Crown and no longer eaten; nor are they captive; their wings are not clipped and they can fly away.
As they weren't calling when they were photographed, it's not clear what breed of swans these three specimens are (see closeup below). Due to the region being such a crossroads for bird migration routes, whooper swans, trumpeter swans, and mute swans (which do not trumpet or whoop, only hiss) are all possibilities.

That Last Alfresco Meal - Terrace Bistro, Bournemouth Central Gardens

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Once again, it's that time of year, to indulge in that last alfresco meal of the year before it becomes too chilly to be able to sit outside comfortably and enjoy the warmth of the sun. (Local mid-day temp. today, Nov 1st: 10 C.) The 'Continental' culture of pavement or terrace cafes with outdoor seating was a long time coming here (some councillors tried to block it as un-English), but is now an accepted part of the resort's more upmarket identity, for both visitors and residents. This particular bistro/cafe/bar with free wi-fi is actually the latest, opened this year, as part of the refurbishment of the Pavilion overlooking Bournemouth's Central Gardens [view from terrace shown below], which now includes a series of heritage plaques in black marble on the terrace above the cafe. The cafe is one of a number of new establishments in Bournemouth (and Poole - cf. at the refurbished Lighthouse arts centre) run by the Council's nonprofit company, BH Live - a sign of changing times.

View From Badbury Rings
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If there were to be a quintessential image of this summer just ended, it would have to be of changeable weather with sun one moment and rain the next. This is what happened here, with that approaching low cloud in the distance soaking the scene in a sudden rain squall a few moments after this was taken. The scene here is the view from Badbury Rings hillfort, an Iron Age crossroads fortification in east-central Dorset. Today accessed via the B3082 Wimborne-Blandford road, it guarded a key local crossroads, where the Salisbury-Dorchester road met the Poole-Bath long-distance trade route. It stands in the estate around Kingston Lacy House managed by the National Trust (car park free, donation requested). The surrounding terrain pictured here is used for the annual point-to-point race run by the local hunt.
The hill here is relatively low [see reverse angle below], but fortified with several concentric rings of steep ditches and high [up to 40'] embankments (the vantage point from which the photo was taken). These once would have held a wooden stockade to help keep out raiders from tribes to the NE after their cattle. However this did not save it from the invading Romans in AD 43. As one of the strongholds of the Celtic Durotriges tribe, it would have been one of the 20 'oppida' (British towns) that fell to the siege tactics of the legionaries commanded by Rome's future emperor Vepasian. Part of the defenses of these British oppida (of which there were hundreds) was the fact that (as Caesar had earlier complained) they were on wooded hills, and Badbury remains one of the few to retain tree cover inside. (Other hillforts Vespasian attacked, like Hod and Hambledon Hills to the north or Maiden Castle to the west, have long been denuded of tree cover. However you can walk clockwise around the rings at Badbury, as some do for luck (it's a neopagan thing), and then into the beech and pine wood to find the OS trig point with plaque showing what lies in each direction.
The original name recorded in Roman records seems to have been Vindocladia. The exact meaning of this is not agreed, perhaps as it seems to lead to a rather Romantic result: vindo means white or sacred, and clad is the same root as in gladiator and claymore (Scottish Celtic claidh mor), both referring to a sword with a broad, slightly leaf-shaped blade. For those who like exploring Romantic legend, the woods were used at one point as a breeding ground for ravens, and this is thought to be one of the reasons (the other being its name) for the idea that this was the site of Arthur's famous victory of Badon Hill. In one Arthurian tale, Arthur kept pet ravens and he was supposedly reincarnated as one of the raven family. Ravens were regarded as omens in Celtic lore, and are still kept as magical-guardian birds at the Tower Of London, originally called the White Mount. In legend, Arthur dug up the sacred head of the Celtic god-hero Bran buried there to safeguard Britain from invasion, saying he alone would guard the country. This is the basis of the belief that Britain will fall if the Tower ravens ever leave. That was why Churchill had their wings clipped during the war, to make sure the prophecy would not seem to be coming true, for even in this sceptical modern age, legends and myths have a powerful presence, which can sometimes be felt when visiting such sites.

English Summer, Southwest Dorset
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This is the view over Chesil Bank and the Fleet Lagoon, at noon on Midsummer's Day 2012, taken from Abbotsbury hill-fort where a beacon stands commemorating the one lit to signal the coming of the Spanish Armada on 21 July 1588. (In the event, the English Navy drove them off and summer gales then wrecked many of the galleons as they tried to escape up and around the British coast.) After the wettest April, the wettest May, the wettest June for a century and now what looks to be the wettest July, 2012's 'English summer' continues apace. Someone once sarcastically defined English summer as "three fine days and a thunderstorm", but this year it was several fine days (last week) and then a return to stormy weather. What the forecasters refer to as 'unsettled weather' does however provide dramatic cloudscape vistas evoking a Turner painting.

Mill-pond By Throop Mill
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A picturesque riverbank or weir near a lily-covered mill-pond was a favorite of painters in pre-photography days. Unfortunately, as with many such views, it is under threat. Throop Mill [just to the left of the main photo, see inset below] has long been derelict and the main weir footbridge, popular with walkers, has now become unsafe. As one of the oldest villages subsumed into Bournemouth, whose northern boundary runs along the Stour, Throop is a conservation area, with carefully preserved houses and cottages like the one seen here. It is one of those areas off the main tourist trail but popular with local walkers, in this case for its access to the Stour's riverbanks, country lanes and green meadows lying between town and airport. However, the planned conversion of the old mill into a tearoom and craft shop has had to be shelved due to lack of funding, and the phrase "enjoy it while it lasts" now applies.

Looking At Navitus Bay
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Poole Bay from Sandbanks, taken one winter afternoon as HM Cutter Valiant sails out to the open sea from its berth in Poole Harbour [see inset below], past Old Harry Rocks, which form the tip of the Purbeck peninsula.
There's always something fascinating about staring out to sea from the coast, gazing at the empty far horizon of the open sea, often against the natural light, for the emptiness allows a contemplative moment.
Sadly, it looks like this stretch of sea won't be so open in a few years: there is a plan to build the world's largest windfarm here. The Mail has a mockup of the same view as shown above, with the turbines beginning where the departing Coast Guard cutter is seen here, dead centre on the horizon. Wind turbines exist elsewhere around the coast as well as inland. (The official library image of HM Cutter Valiant shows it sailing it past several of them.) But this wind farm or park will be three times larger than anything that presently exists. It will cover an area the size of Glasgow, with up to 300-plus giant turbines stretching from here across the approach to Bournemouth, to the Isle of Wight. At nearly 700 feet tall, the turbines will also be taller than anything in London, visible for around 20 miles.

At present, one of those mandatory public consultations has been going on, for what that's worth. Some of the objections being coordinated by the ad hoc campaigning group Challenge Navitus to Eneco's "wind park" are to do with maritime safety, as the farm will create a vast maze of navigation hazards for passenger ferries, merchant ships, official craft like HMC Valiant or the RNLI lifeboat, as well as the thousands of yachts and other pleasure craft moored at Poole, Lymington, Cowes etc. However, two years before the public consultation, the Crown Estate (which owns much of the coast) already handed over to Eneco the 279 square mile area of seabed it asked for to build its scheme. The area in future will thus be known as Navitus Bay.

Clavel Tower, Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset

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New Year’s saw national press coverage on the importance of recognising Britain's “follies” as well worth preserving. This was prompted by a campaign by historian and author Gwyn Headley, a tie-in with an ebook-update of his county-by-county series Follies Of England. ‘Follies’ means a building put up for ornamental or aesthetic reasons rather than practical purposes. In the 18th and 19th centuries, in the wake of the landscaped-estate movement and associated “Cult Of The Picturesque,” follies became fashionable among the landed gentry. Your estate was just not really complete without an ornamental tower of some sort, a Greek-style temple, an Italianate grotto, or some other feature that made your estate resemble a scene from classical painting or (after the Romantic Movement) a ‘Gothick’ novel. If you were lucky enough to have a left-over ruin such as a ruined abbey, you could carefully preserve that; or if not, you could even have a fake ruin purpose-built.
This region of course has a carefully preserved ruined castle, Corfe, and the National Trust promotes it around this time of year as a "romantic" destination for the Valentine's Day weekend. It's certainly the best known and most popular preserved ruin, and we've covered it before.
However, ‘prospect’ towers on the hunting-tower model (for deer-spotting etc) were the most common type of folly. Pictured here is Clavel Tower, on a headland overlooking Kimmeridge Bay on the Jurassic Coast [OS map #195, grid-ref SY908/786]. Since its construction c1820 in long-fashionable “Tuscan” architectural style, it’s inspired painters and writers from Hardy to PD James, but it’s chosen here as it became a symbol (complete with online fundraising campaign) of Britain’s threatened architectural heritage in this often-overlooked area.
In this case, the threat was from the sea eroding the headland. The tower then became an example of what could be done in the way of preservation: over a two year period, the whole tower was dismantled stone by stone and reassembled just inland, the cost defrayed by turning the rebuilt tower into holiday accommodation. It's more remote and harder to find than busy Corfe Castle, which for many adds to its appeal of Romantic isolation. But for those needing encouragement to venture further, also recently refurbished is the farm-produce cafe/shop in the village, pictured below.
Our south-central region has more than a few examples of the different types of folly, and we’re working on a webpage on follies around the region. But in the meantime, some of those on our webpage on preserved scenic ruins arguably qualify as they are preserved largely for aesthetic reasons. [click here].

Tyneham Valley from Whiteway Hill

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The fine 'Indian summer' weather which began in September right on the day of the autumn equinox and continued to the last Friday in October is now just a memory. With a long, grim 'Siberian' winter forecast, it seems appropriate to represent that memory with a suitable local photo, of clouds creeping over a sunlit landscape.
The spot shown here was chosen as it was one long championed by a veteran local campaigner who died this summer. Rodney Legg, Dorset's most prolific author of nonfiction heritage books, campaigned to save the site of Tyneham-Worbarrow, situated in a cleft just between the Purbeck Hills and the Jurassic Coast. In this view looking SE, Tyneham,the main village, is itself just out of sight, down on the right, as is Worbarrow, which today consists of a few ruined cottages on the bay of the same name [pictured, inset below]. Road access to Tyneham is down the near side of the valley.
The government had expropriated this land during WWII for a gunnery practice range and then broke its promise to hand it back to the evicted locals. Over the decades, these former residents moved away or died, and campaigner Rodney Legg finally accepted the Army's stewardship (under public scrutiny due to his campaign) as preferable to the alternative - the kind of uncontrolled development which leads to vast clifftop caravan parks of the sort seen elsewhere (e.g. along the coast at Durdle Door). The village of Tyneham is preserved more or less as it was pre-WWII, and with Remembrance Day weekend coming up, it is worth mentioning that it too serves as a war memorial.
Unlike in other countries, British wartime why-we-fight artwork tended to depict pastoral scenes, showing the sunlit uplands of Churchillian metaphor, representing the promised land of peacetime. This metaphor was to be evoked in the Prime Minister's speech at the September 2011 party rally but was abandoned as inappropriate due to the worsening economic situation, the various broken promises on policy, and unpopular new measures like the opening up of the countryside to developers. This last has also served as a recruiting sergeant for the National Trust, which is spearheading a campaign against uncontrolled development. It was announced in October that the NT has its highest proportion of its membership in Dorset, with around 1 in 5 County residents now a member.
The Tyneham-Worbarrow valley is now part of the Army's Lulworth Ranges, and its paths can be walked when the tank-gunnery range is not in use [access details here and here ].

Poole Harbour, from Ham Common viewpoint

Carisbrooke Castle,
Isle Of Wight
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It's 350 years this month since the 1661 coronation of Charles II marked the public start of what historians call the Restoration. The Restoration of the Monarchy was greeted as an occasion of public celebration as it meant the end of two decades of bloody strife ending in a Puritan republic that had even banned Xmas. Exactly a year later, on 23 April 1662, a royal wedding was held to secure the succession.
In fact, this did not provide a legitimate heir, and more fighting would occur after Charles's death. Much of the 17th century was thus given over to civil strife, which began with the king closing Parliament and arresting MPs, they in turn declaring war on him, and a new republic under Cromwell ordering him beheaded in 1649.
Carisbrooke Castle was the scene of part of this story, one of many such sites where key events in Britain's constitutional history took place in this region. Because of this we have put up a separate webpage describing sites like Carisbrooke and the role they played, and another page telling the story of the two main events that have caught the public imagination ever since, both of which occurred locally. On our sister site, on local media, we also have a page outlining the various local-interest novels and film-tv dramas set in the period (such as Children Of The New Forest).

17th Century Sites Of Historical Interest: An Introduction To Sites You Can Visit
On The Trail Of The Galloping Cavaliers -The 'Royal Flight' Episodes Of 1651 And 1685
Setting The Scene In Wessex: The 17th Century In Literature And Drama

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England's newest National Park was officially opened today [April 1st, 2011]. The new South Downs National Park extends eastward beyond our own south-central coverage area, but the western end is adjacent to our own regional gateway for visitors from London etc: St Catherine's Hill overlooking Winchester. Our main photo, above, was taken looking westward from the new Park’s highest point, Butser Hill National Nature Reserve [270m /886 ft], which stands near its western end, within Hampshire’s largest protected (yew and beech) woodland, Queen Elizabeth Country Park.
Here on 1st April, says the Guardian, from the top of this steep, flat-topped grassy escarpment you may be able to hear church bells in all directions in the distance, ringing out in acclamation. Perhaps the celebration is one of relief that the long political and bureaucratic struggle (over 100 organisations campaigned for a decade over policy details) is over. For the Park has been a lifetime in the offing, the last of the 12 areas from the original list of candidates proposed in 1947, when the (originally American) idea of National Parks was first mooted, and has been actively debated since 1999.
In any case, on a clear day you can see east and west over the western Weald, north over southern Hampshire [pictured below], as well as southward to the Hampshire coast, around Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. The presence of a replica prehistoric conical thatched hut just below is appropriate, standing on the site of a Celtic Iron Age settlement. (The main Iron Age replica farmstead, Butser Ancient Farm, was relocated a mile south). As with all chalk-downland trackways, the pathways along here are ancient, part of a prehistoric network of interconnecting long-distance ‘high road’ routes used by early travellers to avoid the woodlands below, where wolves and other dangers lurked ....

The view from the north side of Butser Hill, inland over southern Hampshire.

St Catherine's Hill viewpoint

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With Valentine's Day upon us, the press is full of features about things to do and places to go for a romantic weekend. We can suggest none better for an outing in this immediate area than a walk up St Catherine's Hill between Bournemouth and Christchurch. (The main road access, the B3073 , runs down the west side of the hill, car park / access lane a quarter mile north of the hospital.) It's still relatively unknown even locally, and has a somewhat mysterious history (see our Notes & Queries feature, The Mystery Of St Catherine's Hill, illustrated with photos taken in different seasons). It's pleasantly wooded with pine trees, and at present there's a campaign to save it from the Council's plans to deforest it. It's thus less windswept than the open heathland the Council prefers, and hence walkable year round, even during inclement winter weather. It has a labyrinth of paths, so that every time you visit, you can take a different route and discover a new corner. There's little danger of getting lost as you can re-orient yourself by looking at the view. There are so many linked paths you can always discover a new corner or vista you haven't seen before.
The photo here shows the main viewpoint on the east side, from where you can see over the Avon Valley to the New Forest and southeast to the Solent, the Isle Of Wight, and Christchurch (the Priory tower is distinct). On the southern side is a viewpoint over Christchurch at the highest point - hence the Ordnance Survey 'trig point' stone marker. The northeastern corner looks up the Avon Valley towards the Bournemouth Airport flight path, so both private and commercial aircraft are frequently seen on landing approach across the valley. From the southwestern viewpoint you can see Bournemouth and the outline of the Purbeck Hills across the bay.

Eype, West Dorset
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The beach seen along here has been in the national news this week [10-Jan-2011], due to the local Council listing it as being for sale for £1, or best offer above that. Conservative-run West Dorset District Council explained the £1 was just a simplified accounting convention since the beach doesn’t bring in any money, but has associated maintenance costs, and the planned sale is part of the Council’s “asset management plan.” The notion that a key beach on the Jurassic Coast (a World Heritage site and major international tourism destination) should be sold for best offer over £1 on the grounds it is not an asset bringing in any revenue may strike some as not so much simplified accounting as simple-minded.
The beach is directly accessible at Eype Mouth, itself hidden here by the ravine containing the tiny resort village of Eype. The name Eype means a steep place, and it is situated down a steep single-lane roadway called Mount Lane, leading to a pub and an upmarket country hotel refurbished since it became the resort of writers and artists in the 1930s. Many however walk to it from along the Coast (in stages anyway) and Eype makes a handy stopover between two better known landmarks on the route, which climbs up and down the downland atop the western half of the fossil-rich clay and greensand cliffs of the Jurassic Coast. (Walking along the beach itself can be difficult and dangerous, due to tides and cliff-falls.)
Below, in the distance you can see West Bay, the fishing port which made possible the town of Bridport just inland, two centuries before it became what it is today - a well-to-do market town with a strong artistic presence. Just beyond where the pier or jetty stands is the spot seen in the opening credits and a key sequence in the 1970s BBC sitcom The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, where Reggie fakes his suicide by stripping and swimming out to sea. The footpath leads up from West Bay to Eype Mouth, and up (a short but steep climb) the flank of Eype Down onto the scarped headland of Thorncombe Beacon, from where this photo was taken. The path here is part of the Dorset Coast Path which now forms part of the longer (Minehead to Swanage) South West Way as well as the designated Jurassic Coast route. Here, the path is also briefly part of the official long-distance Monarch’s Way, commemorating the route the future Charles II followed in 1651 when fleeing Roundhead forces and trying to find a local ship’s captain who would take him cross Channel to safety.
Our viewpoint, Thorncombe Beacon is, at 157m / 515ft, the second-highest point on England’s South Coast, and takes its designation from the fact there is a beacon here built in 1988 to commemorate the one erected in 1588 to be set alight if the Spanish Armada was sighted (which it was, heading east, leading to a sea battle off Portland). The highest point on the south coast is a kilometre or so farther west: Golden Cap [National Trust], at 191m / 617ft another viewpoint well worth the climb [see inset photo below of Thorncombe Beacon seen from Golden Cap]. Farther to the west, beyond another tiny resort, Seatown [with pub-restaurant], and then Charmouth [town, slightly inland] is Lyme Regis, an even bigger tourism draw, and it is possible for those fit enough to walk all the way as a scenic daytrip outing.

Sunset Over Wych Channel, Poole Harbour

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With the wettest November in a long time now giving way to snow all across Britain, the weather offered a few days of sun in between. This image was taken in late November [26-11-2010], at sundown the day before the snow-clouds arrived. It shows a remote inlet of Poole Harbour known as the Wych Channel. The Harbour is one of the largest in Europe and its marshy inlets long offered a haven for pirates going back to the Danish Vikings. While commerce (including an oilfield, inland at Wytch Heath) is only a short distance away, today this is a peaceful corner, part of a Nature Reserve. Its chief inhabitants are wading birds and herds of sika deer who can be heard calling in the woods, and its main visitors the many “twitchers” (bird-watchers) who visit regularly, as much of the land around is now owned by the RSPB.

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The new hit film just out, Tamara Drewe, based on a cult 2007 Guardian comic strip, was shot at various locations in the West Dorset countryside. An article in the Telegraph comments how when such scenic films create a surge of tourism interest, the experience of visiting them does not always live up to expectations. Of course, it never will for anyone expecting to see exactly what they saw on screen, but for anyone else, in this case it definitely does. It was West Dorset’s “deep country” aspect that prompted the director to film it there when the comic strip was set closer to Bournemouth, at locations ranging from Bridport near the coast to Yetminster near Sherborne and the Somerset boundary. West of Dorchester, the inland countryside changes from the flatter eastern half of Dorset to a landscape of rolling downs where every turn in the road brings a different perspective, and there are many climbable hills as viewpoints.
The view pictured above is from the Hardy Monument at Portesham, the first major inland viewpoint beyond Dorchester [detour S off A35]. It is not named after the author of the “Wessex Novels” like Far From The Madding Crowd (which also largely inspired Tamara Drewe) but his naval namesake, Nelson’s flag officer of “Kiss me, Hardy” fame. This Thomas Hardy was from the village of Portesham, and the 72ft (22m) Monument was erected in his memory in 1844. It was recently repaired, and this summer the surrounding land seen here was bought by Dorset County Council, for the purpose of “improving public access, creating learning opportunities and promoting recreation such as walking, picnics and enjoying its views and tranquillity - a source of inspiration for art and poetry." (Tamara Drewe, pictured below, is set at a writers' retreat where writers are meant to draw inspiration from staying in the area.)
Beyond, to the west, can be found farther hilltop viewpoints like Dorset's highest inland point Pilsdon Pen, just above where the Romantic poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy set up house in the 1790s.

Christchurch Harbour

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This year, the Dorset Architectural Heritage Week of open days runs from 8-16 September. Sites include (in no particular order) Hardy's Cottage, Weymouth (town walk), Blandford (town walk), Highcliffe Castle, Christchurch River & Harbour Cruise, Lulworth Castle & Park, Mapperton House, Poundbury, Christchurch Castle, Hengistbury Head, St Catherine's Hill, Clavell Tower, Clouds Hill Cottage, and Corfe Castle. The programme can be downloaded from here [PDF], with booking details here [PDF].
However, the popularity of the annual DAHW scheme, whereby for a limited period the public can enjoy guided visits to sites sometimes not otherwise accessible, has meant a change to the booking system: it now includes a "draw" (as in drawing names from a hat). If you are unable to book a site visit, you can still visit many of the sites for a DIY exploration, with the help of info from guidebooks and/or the internet. With other sites you can visit but without full access - often you can visit the grounds of a stately home, but not go inside; or else you can go on a regular tour with the usual entry fee.
In fact, you can easily organise your own heritage-exploration altogether, there being no shortage of other sites of interest in the vicinity. For example, pictured above is Christchurch Harbour, and within easy walking distance are Christchurch Priory and Castle, and Hengistbury Head, while not far away by car, Highcliffe Castle and St Catherine's Hill can also be visited. You can use the Google Earth Map or the Multimap facility [see links in right-hand column] for directions etc.

The Somerset Levels From Glastonbury Tor

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The usual meaning of 'Somerset' given is people of The Summer Country, and the arrival of fine summer weather makes the Tor a natural choice for a viewpoint, for on a fine day such as this [July 9, 2010] one can see farther from here than anywhere in the region. With the coming of summer, Glastonbury becomes an international tourism destination (outside of the famous music festival held annually nearby).
By climbing the Tor, one can obtain a 360-degree over the entire region. Here the view is towards the west, past the town. Glastonbury was an ancient port, the tidal reaches of the Celtic Sea once reaching inland to here, at least as a winter flood plain. Some say this winter flooding is the basis of the old Celtic name Ynys Witrin, or Isle of Glass, referring to the reflective qualities of the surrounding water as a mirror - lakes being traditionally entrances to the Celtic Otherworld. Another derivation of 'Somerset' is from Saxon somersetae, 'the settlers on the sea lakes', and archaeological digs have shown there was an Iron Age lake village here, with houses on stilts. There were also settlements built on artificial mounds in the manner of the Scots crannogs.
Later, land-reclamation schemes held back the sea's incursion over the Levels. The worst occasion the Levels were completely flooded was in 1607, when giant waves crested the sea walls, with around 2,000 people drowning before the water ebbed away ten days later. However storms continued to breach the sea defences protecting this low-lying land until the 1920s, when the defences were improved. The entire area is criss-crossed by large drainage ditches to contain the surface water, though parts of the Levels still become flood plains in time of heavy rains swelling the local rivers. The dried-out peat moor makes for rich grazing and farming land. For centuries, unless there was high water, the Levels were largely impassable swamp.
Nevertheless history is all around, concentrated mainly on the hillocks like the Tor which offered defensive settlement sites from prehistoric times on, with sites linked by wooden trackways and causeways across the swamp. The world's oldest known example of timbered walkway, the Sweet Track, was found here. It was nearby to the SW, at the "Isle" of Athelney, that Alfred was able to hide out in safety after his defeat by the Danes (this was where he supposedly burnt the cakes he was meant to be watching). To the NE on a clear day, you can just make out the tower of the cathedral at Wells, England's smallest city. The last pitched battle on English soil, Sedgemoor in 1685, was fought nearby, and the descriptions of corpses lying submerged in the swamp are said to have inspired the scene in Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, where the corpses try to drag Bilbo down.
Glastonbury itself is the focus of many legends about the first British church being founded here by the disciple Joseph of Arimatheia sailing here when it was still a port. Supposedly he planted his staff on Wearyall Hill [the ridge visible in the photo above, lower right], and it sprouted into a Palestinian variety of thorn tree. He also supposedly brought with him sacred Christian relics like the Grail which features in the Arthurian legends. A tomb excavated in the Abbey grounds in 1991 is claimed to be the site of Arthur and Guenevere's grave. This nexus of associated legends is the basis of much of the area's tourism [more info here].

‘The Coast With The Most’

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Bournemouth and Poole have a new joint tourism campaign for 2010, “The Coast With the Most.” It has the tagline “Love Watersports, Love Bournemouth and Poole,” which was evidently meant to tie in with the new artificial surf reef constructed in Poole Bay off Boscombe Pier and new seafront development (which has just won a restoration award). In the event, the surf reef completed in the autumn has proved somewhat underpowered for the handful of keen year-round surfers [pictured] who promoted the idea, but there are plenty of more general-interest attractions all along the coast. As BBC’s hit TV series Coast demonstrated, Poole Harbour is so shallow that it is relatively safe for beginners to learn water sports in, with various equipment-rental services for this. And any definition of “The Coast With the Most” would have to include the Jurassic Coast, which starts on the west side of Poole Bay just beyond the sands of Studland Bay, out of shot on the left. Note that our photo, taken from Bournemouth Pier on a bright but breezy March day, is not of the Boscombe–Eastcliff surf-reef side, but shows the Westcliff side, with the Marriott-Highcliff Hotel above the cliff-face lift from the beach.

Sunset Over New Forest

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The Anglo-Saxons called February Solmonath, the month of Sol the sun, commorating the first sunny days of the year. This is the phenomenon referred to as 'false spring,' when the first hardy green shoots appear, just before winter's last gasp. The first week of February is also the start of spring in another sense. The halfway points between solstices and equinoxes are known as cross-quarter days, and were marked by ancient festivals. The 5th/6th of Febrary is the halfway mark between the midwinter solstice [21/22 Dec] and the spring equinox [21 March]. The former is the point when the nights rather than the days begin to get shorter, and the latter the point when the days become as long as nights.
Thus one could argue this week is the start of the 90-day Spring season, with a wintery half from now till around the March equinox, giving way to a warmer summery half of days longer than nights. (At present, sunset is at 5pm, and sunrise at 7.40 am.) Around this time, the Celtic calendar celebrated the festival of Imbolc (Oimelc in Old Irish). This sounds like something to do with milk, which is apt: it means the in-filling of the udders of the sheep and cattle, preparatory to the birth of their young in the spring. The Imbolc/Oimelc festival may have begun each year only when this phenomenon (technically, the lactation of ewes) was witnessed locally.
This is a variation on the American version of the ancient Anglo-Saxon cross-quarter day of Candlemas, Groundhog Day (2 Feb), which German settlers to America brought with them, changing the original proverbial animal (hedgehog) for an American one. In both these, and other European versions, the presence or lack of sunlight is used to to predict whether winter weather is over. The idea is if the hibernating animal emerges, sees his own shadow and retreats again, it is a false spring, to be followed by 6 or so more weeks of winter weather. (The 'scientific' explanation is that air temperature and pressure are inversely related, with a rise in temp creating a low-pressure zone which pulls in weather from other zones with higher pressure and thus lower temperatures.) As I write, this effect is already descending upon us, with the forecast of another cold snap, and no doubt, 6 more weeks of winter in general.

Full English Breakfast, Dorchester cafe

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With the entire island of Britain in the grip of Arctic conditions this month, a photo of icy roads, fields etc might seem de rigeur. But instead of one more such photo to add to the tens of thousands already uploaded to personal and news sites, I thought we'd have something different, a photo of what is most important to people in such times - hot meals. Although the supermarkets are reportedly running out of bread, milk and other perishables due to delivery slowdowns combined with panic buying, the cafes along the transport routes are still going, providing vital breaks and comfort to the snowbound traveller. The 'Full English Breakfast' is an English institution, a meal which can be had in B&Bs and some pubs as well as cafes and restaurants, sometimes on an "all-day" basis. This may date back to author Somerset Maugham's famous dictum, "To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day." The standard shorthand for the ingredients is 'EBCB' or eggs, bacon, chips, and beans, usually with toast or fried bread on the side. There will be fried tomatoes and perhaps mushrooms, and these days a complete vegetarian version of the FEB is usually available. These meals are often made using local produce where possible. This one is from a Dorchester cafe, but wherever you find 'Full English Breakfast' listed, you'll find having one sets you up for the whole day.

Winter Solstice Sundown, River Frome

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The week before the winter solstice and Xmas has brought genuine wintry weather, with freezing rain, black ice, sleet, and fog resulting in a few traffic disasters. The winter solstice [Dec 21/22] is when the sun is at a standstill (sunset and sunrise are the same time for a period of 2-3 days), and the days are at their shortest before getting longer again. Archaeologists now say (based on finds of the bones of pigs which would have born in the spring and when killed were around 9 months old) that this was when the main rendezvous and feast occurred at Stonehenge. They surmise this may have been the main feast of the year in pre-Christian Britain. (For more on the ancient calendar, click here: The Ancient Country Year.)
At the winter-solstice vigil at Stonehenge this year, it was reportedly too foggy to see the sun come up or go down, but a few other days this past week have been cold and clear. This view of the winter-solstice sunset over the River Frome was shot from Wareham Bridge on just such a clear day, shortly before 6pm, when you can see the new moon rising in the last afterglow of the sunset. As usual, it’s unlikely that we’ll get the proverbial ‘white christmas’ the bookies take long odds on down here, but there were a few snow flurries on the official solstice [Dec 21st], as seen in the image below, taken in Corfe Castle square in front of the Greyhound Inn, which we’ve covered before as England’s most photographed pub.

Arne Peninsula, Poole Harbour

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The Arne Peninsula, on the southern edge of Poole Harbour, is not well-known, but has been in the local news lately. This was part of November's Remembrance Day events, in commemoration of its wartime role as a night-time 'bombing decoy' ground, to lure the Luftwaffe into bombing it instead of Poole across the Harbour - or the Holton Heath cordite factory nearby. Tar barrels, troughs of petrol and the like were set alight to simulate the appearance of a city or factory on fire, leading the bombers to drop their bombs there without loss of life.
The peninsula was chosen as it was largely uninhabited, the few villagers being evacuated in 1942. A few returned after the war, and the small church remains intact today, though without electricity. Its mix of heathland and salt-marsh makes it is unsuitable for building on, and so the area remains undeveloped, declared a nature reserve in 1954. It is a suitable habitat for marsh-birds, with an RSPB bird-watching hide by a lagoon on the edge of the harbour, where you can study various wading birds. Deer also find it congenial, and one can also see small herds in the oak and pine scrub woodland of the 9-acre Big Wood around harbour's edge.
The RSPB, who have had responsibility for the area since 1966, have put in a car park on the village road (off the A351 Wareham-Corfe-Swanage road) which runs across Hartland Moor. From the car park, you can stroll down past the church to the viewpoint at Shipstal Point, where an anti-aircraft battery and command post once stood amidst the heather. From the viewpoint one can look out over the harbour [see below], with Poole port visible to the north and Brownsea and the smaller islands to the east, by the entrance to the Harbour between Sandbanks and Studland. Walking down to the harbour shore, one can just glimpse, to the south, the grey ruined towers of Corfe Castle on its mound in the Corfe gap in the Purbeck coast downs.

Arne remains undeveloped and almost undisturbed, the wartime bomb craters now ponds where wildlife flourishes. Sir Arthur Mee, in his The King's England volume on Dorset, commented that "it has the beauty that is worth living for. No one is ever tired of walking to Arne. " He concludes his entry: "Not far from the church the lane runs out to a point where men raised the great mound for their dead in the Long Ago; this and the church are all that man has made that is notable in Arne." One theory about the name Arne is that it is from the Saxon aerne, 'secret place', and this would certainly be apt.

Avebury Stone Face
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This being Hallowe’en weekend, with the media focusing on spooky subjects, I thought this image might make a more appropriate local-interest choice than the usual ghosts etc. In most such cases, you can only read about others reporting strange phenomena, but at Avebury you can see for yourself, walk among the prehistoric megaliths, and decide whether or not the stones are actually hewn into faces. If so, what do they represent? Visitors claim they can see faces on many of the stones, with some vaguely human and others distinctively animal-shaped - as shown below [hold mouse over image].

Avebury is part of the same UNESCO World Heritage Site as Stonehenge, which some claim also has faces carved on it, though this is harder to verify as ordinary visitors cannot get close to the stones. Stonehenge has long been regarded, by UNESCO officials, Parliamentary committees and others, as a heritage-management disgrace. It is sandwiched between two busy roads [pictured below], surrounded by chain-link fencing to make sure no one gets close without paying, and a concrete pedestrian underpass for the site’s paying visitors (nearly a million a year), who then find the stone circle itself is still out of bounds, to protect it from damage. (Though if you pay a group fee, English Heritage will let you in among the stones – as you can see from many a film. After many years of bitter access-protest battles with the police closing the roads at the summer solstice, EH also lets up to a thousand of celebrants conduct all-night solstice getogethers for free.)

Now, with the 2012 Olympic games including events on the coast down here as well as in London, the government has decided to act, backing a £25 million plan to turf over the A344 road leading to the coach and car park, and build a prefab visitor centre with larger car park near Amesbury, with ‘shuttles’ (probably land trains) taking visitors back and forth.

This is an alternative to earlier schemes over the past two decades, culminating - after £38 million was spent on consultation fees for aborted schemes - in a plan last year to replace the A303 main road by excavating a sort of mini Channel Tunnel under Salisbury Plain -- not suprisingly dropped as too expensive, at £500 million-plus.) Avebury meanwhile, remains in care of the National Trust, who let visitors walk within the stone circle, which is larger and older than Stonehenge.

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Last Days Of Summer, Poole Harbour

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Often in England, the autumn weather is sunnier than it was in the summertime. After the promised “BBQ summer” failed to appear, the press have been headlining a “BBQ autumn,” with ‘unseasonal’ sunny weather offering a final opportunity for outdoors pursuits. The south-central coast is a boating playground – hence the decision to hold the marine events for the 2012 olympic summer games here. Poole Harbour in particular is a natural marine playground – shallow, yet almost the largest natural harbour around (98 miles in circumference). Most of the northern side is now a yachting haven, new shoreline housing developments having their own private marinas with mooring areas and slipways. The summer-only residents have gone home by now, leaving the harbour relatively quiet. Local boat owners however can enjoy these last glory days of summer, before autumn gales force them to stow sails and batten down the hatches. For now, harbour waters are calm and still, the only waves from the wake of passing power boats, often pulling waterskiers. Overall, the appearance is almost that of a painting. Here, in the background along the shore at Hamworthy can be glimpsed one of the newer harbour-shore developments at right, with the more traditional type of British seashore structure at left – the beach hut.
This is just west of Poole Quay, and proceeding westward from here, the main channel passes Poole Yacht Club marina and, next to the Royal Marines base at Hamworthy, the new Moriconium Quay marina development [pictured below].

Along here is the area known simply as Lake, where Vespasian’s Roman legions set up their first mainland foothold. Westward are the sandhills of Ham Common and Rockley Sands development and holiday park. Beyond Lytchett Bay, the channel turns southwest, between Holton Heath to the north and the almost completely unspoilt Arne peninsula on the south or Purbeck side, leading up the Frome towards Wareham via a meandering route through an extensive reed-marsh at the river mouth [below].

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Gold Hill, Shaftesbury

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English Heritage’s Architectural Heritage Week Open Days are here again, with hundreds of sites not normally accessible to the public opened up for free, often with bookable guided tours available. (Year-round, many of these are normally only open limited hours, or do not offer guided tours, or are not free.) The scene shown above for instance is a public site, and indeed is a famous postcard view. (Yes, it’s the one in the old Hovis ads.) But the adjoining ruined Abbey whose buttresses can be see on the right of the picture normally has limited public access. Abbey Park Walk viewpoint [pictured below] over Blackmore Vale to the south is open 365 days a year as a public promenade, but the Abbey ruins behind are walled off.
Shaftesbury Abbey, with its Royal Nunnery going back to Alfred the Great, was Britain’s foremost women-only abbey, and the grounds now contain a museum and garden. The hilltop town was both a market town and a pilgrimage site (King Canute supposedly died here kneeling in front of the tomb of an earlier sainted king) and, besides the Abbey and Gold Hill Museum, is rich in historic buildings, with a dozen blue plaques. Dorset’s Architectural Heritage Week actually lasts 9 days [Sep 12-20], with listing and booking details available here for this and other guided tours and visits. (If you miss the DAHW event, or just want to visit the town for an independent tour, a downloadable PDF showing a town heritage walk, together with another for the Abbey grounds, can be found here.)

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The Osmington White Horse

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This famous Dorset landmark, carved on the Coast Downs in or before 1808 to commemorate George III’s stays at Weymouth, is in the news this week. The story is that a 2-day makeover of the Osmington White Horse, done for a TV ‘challenge’ show, was botched. In September 1989, BBC’s ‘Challenge Anneka’ tasked presenter Anneka Rice and several local Scouts with making the rather overgrown figure show up better. Tons of white Portland stone chippings were brought in to dress the exposed limestone, which is more greyish-purple than white. This was 20 years ago, and in the last few years, the hasty makeover has succumbed to age, leaving the carving looking rather grotty-looking, due to uneven placement, slippage and weathering. The photo above is one I took over 5 years ago, on a sunny day in July '04, and can be compared with more recent ones in the press [Daily Mail story here] or on Wikipedia, which show the deterioration since then.
The 280 by 323 ft figure is now to be restored by the County Council and The Georgian Group preservation charity, to its original state as much as possible. The Portland stone chippings are to be removed, and the ground re-scoured, after a geophysical survey and a study of older photos, for which they have put out a call. For 2 centuries now, it has been an established landmark on the hills overlooking Weymouth’s eastern approach road [A353], past Osmington village [OS Grid Ref SY717842] [map].
The fact the King is shown facing east - and thus riding away from Weymouth – gave rise to spurious local folktales that this was why the king never returned to see it, and that the bookseller who had sketched out its construction (supposedly paid for by Admiral Nelson’s brother) committed suicide as a result of his blunder. In fact, there are many white horses in the hillsides of Wessex, and there are hints the existing carving supplants an older one, to which a human figure was added some 2 centuries or so ago, representing the King – or the Duke of Wellington, or even Lord Nelson. It is the only known white horse carrying a rider.

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Mudeford Sandbank, dividing Christchurch Harbour and Bay, taken from Hengistbury Head
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The 2012 Summer Olympic & Para-Olympic Games are being held not only in London, but down here as well, along the coast between Portland and here. The sailing events will be held off Portland, but Christchurch Bay will be used for competitor training and practice. Because of the income the Games are expected to bring to the locality, certain key areas are being upgraded. The coast esplanade, just visible beyond the line of beach huts, is to be refurbished, to quote BBC News [27 Aug 09], with a “new beach access track and areas for sailors and watersports people to store and launch their craft.”
The esplanade in question is known as the Gundimore Promenade, after a house that was the centre of a literary-minded group of people who helped make the vicinity fashionable in the early 19th Century, when it was little more than a wasteland frequented by smugglers. (See our feature The Forgotten Regency Resort.) In fact, only a year before the gentry first arrived in 1785, there had been a 3-hour battle here, involving snipers and cannon, between His Majesty’s Forces and up to two hundred smugglers and their accomplices. After the area’s major landowner, Sir George Rose MP and his son the poet William Stewart Rose, built seaside villas here, they began inviting cultured acquaintances such as Sir Walter Scott and future Poet Laureate Robert Southey to stay at Gundimore and adjacent summer cottages. These are still visible from Gundimore Promenade, pictured below, looking towards Mudeford Quay, with Mudeford Sandbank and Hengistbury Head visible in the background.
Hengistbury itself is not only a viewpoint, but an Ancient Monument popular with locals and visitors, and there was such an outcry when the closure of its activities centre was announced this spring that the Council was forced to rethink its plans. Mudeford Sandbank also attracts much interest as it is one of the few sites where you are allowed to sleep in your beach hut, and the record prices and high ground rents reflect this. A mile east down the beach is Highcliffe, where retired Prime Minister Lord Bute bought an estate and built a house to “command the finest outlook in England.” The present Highcliffe Castle, now open to the public, was a replacement built in 1835 for Bute’s original manor house, which was lost to cliff erosion by 1794.

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Red Arrows Departing, Poole Bay

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Said to be the largest event of its kind in the UK, the 2nd Bournemouth Air Festival [20-23 Aug 2009] drew record crowds of over 300,000 a day, and over a million altogether. There were aerobatics displays by helicopters, biplane and monoplane prop planes and jets, and ground events like a simulated beach landing by the Royal Marines, and evening fireworks. (An over-promoted 'world-record' show on the first evening got bad publicity in the national press for being a fizzle.) The 4-day show's aerial 'stars' were the RAF's Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight of 3 WWII planes (a Spitfire, a Hurricane and a Lancaster), the RAF's newest fighter the Eurofighter Typhoon, a restored Avro Vulcan delta-wing nuclear bomber (a no-show in 08), and of course, the perennial favourite, the RAF Red Arrows aerobatics team. This photo, taken from Bournemouth's Eastcliff at 4pm on Saturday, Day 3, shows the Red Arrows flying off into the late-afternoon haze and cloud, watched by a crowd estimated by police at 340,000, including an 'armada' of nearly a thousand boats moored offshore.

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Red Arrows over Bournemouth Central Gardens
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The 2nd Bournemouth Airshow, Thurs 20th - Sun 23rd August, again stars the RAF Red Arrows, who open and close the 4-day event. There are dozens of other attractions - the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon, the last airworthy Avro Vulcan nuclear bomber, a Sea Vixen, a US WW2 P51 Mustang long-range fighter, with various helicopters performing aerobatics as well as the range of prop and jet planes. In the Central Gardens in the evenings is a 'Night Air' entertainments programme, with hot air balloons, fireworks displays, a Royal Marines band, laser show etc. (Last year's show was attended by an estimated 750,000, so any visit needs planning. For schedule of main highlights, click here.)

Burton Bradstock beach and Hive Beach Café
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Though England has just enjoyed more than the proverbial 'two fine days and a thunderstorm' that make up a typical English summer (with a heatwave lasting well over a week), the return of more typical unsettled weather has made planning a holiday outing problematic. However even if going to the beach for a suntan is not an option, Dorset's Jurassic Coast offers all-weather outdoors pursuits. Even on a rainy day, a favourite activity is a 'bracing' walk along the seashore, inevitably followed by a hot meal at a nearby café or inn. A particularly popular rendezvous for this, year-round, is the Hive Beach Café at the western end of Chesil Bank near Burton Bradstock in West Dorset. The seaside café/bakery/ice cream parlour has regularly won awards, most recently Coast magazine's 2009 Award for Best Coastal Café/Pub/Restaurant, and the Times shortlist [4-7-09] of Britain's top-ten fish-n-chip outlets. The seafood menu is sourced where possible from Lyme Bay, of which the café environs offer an impressive view, a walk along the bluffs being a must before or (usually) after a meal. (As Dorset-resident TV chef Lesley Waters puts it, "You get a big bowl of fish soup with really good bread, then walk it off on the beach.")

Osborne House, Isle Of Wight
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This seems a timely choice as the film Young Victoria (on current release and coming out on DVD), has made many aware of the Queen's early happy married life. Victoria had spent youthful seaside holidays on Wight, at Norris Castle near Cowes, having begun her popular 'Royal Progress' trip of 1833 by yacht along the Dorset-Devon coast here. After she became Queen, she and Albert bought up the Osborne estate next to Norris Castle, and had their own 'marine palace' built overlooking The Solent. It was designed in the then-fashionable Italianate style as the Solent view [pictured below] reminded Albert of the Bay Of Naples. The Italianate design would give the place some of the appeal of a sunny Mediterranean resort. The Georgian manor house was rebuilt in Palladian style, including campanile towers, a loggia balcony, and pavilion. Terraced gardens with statues and fountains in Renaissance style cascaded down towards the seashore, where Victoria had her own bathing machine.
The result was so attractive that the 'Osborne Style' would be imitated in Britain, Europe, and the USA. It was suitably secluded. Osborne was guarded at times by up to 200 soldiers (and of course her fierce Highland gillie John Brown) who kept tourists as well as anarchists out. (Her new Poet Laureate, Tennyson, also set up a home on Wight, near what is now Tennyson Down, but was soon besieged by tourists.) She remained there after Albert died, dying there herself in 1901. Her later life at Osborne was seen in the 1997 film Mrs Brown, starring Judi Dench as an older, widowed Victoria. The couple's, and later their son's, interest in yachting, with a 'Royal Yachting Squadron,' established the Cowes Regatta as an annual event (1st week August 2009). It being a tradition that Royal princes should serve a stint in the 'Senior Service,' Osborne became in part a Royal Naval College where future kings served as cadets. Osborne later became a major tourist attraction, now kept by English Heritage as much as possible as it was when Victoria died there.

Rainy Bournemouth seafront

Salisbury Cathedral Cloisters
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Now, a report backed by Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber called 'Sacred Britain' has recommended marketing initiatives be established e.g. to "publicise the role of churches in genealogy to the thousands of Americans expected for the 2012 Olympic Games in London." Salisbury Cathedral installed an entry turnstile where you would hand over a "voluntary donation" , and they also tell you the amount you should give (on their website it's £5 per adult and £12 for families). They also had 'formal' admission charges during 750th Anniversary events like the Flower Festival in the summer, but this is now over. It's also less crowded now school has re-started, but with other "Salisbury Cathedral 750" events ending September 30th, it'll soon be last chance to see the historic exhibit in its inner sanctum, the Cloisters courtyard shown in the downloadable image above.

Glastonbury Abbey ruins
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A shot of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, taken on the June 1st weekend. The property was re-acquired by the church 100 years ago, in 1908.  It had been in private hands following Henry VIII's Dissolution of The Monasteries, which had seen what had been England's finest abbey ruined. It is semi-officially known as "the cradle of Christianity in England" as some believe the first church in England (perhaps in Europe) stood here. Every year, there are both Catholic and CoE pilgrimages. This year, the Catholic one comes first (Saturday 7th June), followed by the Church of England's own official Glastonbury Pilgrimage 2008 on Saturday 21st June.

The New Forest
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This being the Tree Council's 'Walk In The Woods Month' "to encourage everyone to enjoy trees and woods in spring", with a programme of guided walks, and downloadable leaflets (if that's the right word), I've updated our 3 web-pages on woodlands. At the western end of our area (and of the Jurassic Coast) is the Lyme Regis Underwood, the closest you can get to experience Britain's now-vanished "Wildwood." For anyone interested in visiting the eastern end of our coverage area, there is 'The Pines Of Bournemouth'.
      There is also a page on the wooded nature reserve of St Catherine's Hill overlooking the Avon Valley near Christchurch. However, note that the text deals with the hill as a religious "mystery site". The pine woods atop the hill are themselves under threat as the Council wants to cut down up to 15,000 trees to "restore" the hill.) This is also Local History Month, if you're interested in delving into the odd place-names and legends associated with sites like this, there's an opportunity here. The guide to the adjacent Avon Valley area is also updated.
       Inland on the eastern side, we have the New Forest, a mix of woodland and heathland ("Forest" was a legal term for a royal hunting preserve). As we haven't a separate page on the New Forest yet, I've put up a photo of it, above, as our new desktop-download photo, showing the different types of woodland vegetation and ground cover you can see in the Forest.
§ The Pines Of Bournemouth
§ Britain's Lost 'Wildwood'
§ The Mystery Of St Catherine's Hill

View from South Cadbury Hillfort
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May is now upon us - amazingly (for England) coinciding with the first hot days of the year. This is when - in olden times - people would set off on pilgrimages.  So I thought a picture of the view from South Cadbury would be apt, for this impressive Dark Ages hill-fort was one of the legendary localisations of Camelot. (As Henry VIII's travelling antiquarian Leland put it, "By South Cadbury is that Camelot..." of which the people of the time still spoke. This view is looking westward, into the haze.

Spring equinox 2007, The Agglestone, Purbeck
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As this year Easter almost coincides with the spring equinox, I thought we should have a pair of tie-in photos to commemorate this double event, one showing a Christian feature (a major church in the region), and other showing a solar event - the sun over a local landmark. So above is the sun over The Agglestone, a 400-ton boulder overlooking the heathland south of Poole Harbour, and below that, Wells Cathedral in Somerset.

Wells Cathedral, Somerset
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The fact of having a cathedral gave Wells the legal status of a city, albeit today England's smallest. Unlike nearby Glastonbury Abbey, the Cathedral survived the Reformation almost intact, together with the moated Bishop's Palace. It is today regarded by some as the most magnificent example of its kind.

Millionaires' Row, Sandbanks, Poole
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Millionaires' Row, Sandbanks (the spit of land enclosing Poole Harbour on the north) has been much featured in the media this past year. Regularly the topic of newspaper stories on high property prices, it was also showcased in an episode (on the 'Property Coast') of BBC's hit series Coast and an ITV 3-part series hosted by Piers Morgan in January 2008. Its nickname Millionaires' Row derives from the fact it is the most expensive real estate in Britain, owing to its combination of a central location (within the Poole-Bournemouth conurbation) and scenic views. Due to its siting on a narrow sandspit, houses have an upper-floor view over Poole Bay to seaward and, in the other direction, Poole Harbour.

View from St Catherine's Hill
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The Avon Valley and western edge of The New Forest at New Year's, looking E from St Catherine's Hill viewpoint N of Christchurch. The valley is wet bottomland along here and low-lying fog is a regular feature of the area on winter mornings.

Poole Harbour, winter sunset
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(This is the most suitable wintry photo I could find for December. Sadly, we haven't had any serious snowfall for some years.)