The Chase

Our Walk through Cranborne Chase today, looked like this. From the top: through Stonedown Wood up on to the Ox Drove, across Woodminton Down and into the Ebble Valley, up Marlycombe Hill, through West Woodyates, With Penbury Hill on the horizon, and wispy clouds above. Eight miles of pure loveliness; we would've gone further, though even when we arrived at 08.00 it was hot and I knew it would become too hot for Geoff, and so I clipped here and there, taking some shorter or more direct routes; it was a good move too, as by mid morning it was scorching and all our water had already gone. Fabulous walking though, and again, few folk about, other than we walked through farms or hamlets.

MIstleberry enclosure

MIstleberry enclosure in Mistleberry Wood near Sixpenny Handley in the Chase, recorded as an Iron Age Hillfort, and I'd suggest a misclassification. A lovely spot though. It’s certainly an enclosure of some kind, although with such slight ditches and ramparts (which are hardly defencive) and its open ended oval shape, and tapering in depth, width and height earthen features, I don't believe it's a hillfort. So what might it be? Maybe it could possibly be an unfinished hillfort (although it's not that big), a defended farmstead, or communal corral or meeting place maybe, or is it the prehistorians go to, and my particular favourite, a ritual site.  I don't know. I don't know if much or any research has been undertaken, beyond the cursory site visit by the Historic Monuments commission sometime early/middle last century leading to its classification. A desk top investigation might be a nice little project.  

Chase

It dawned on me that we'd not been out to the Chase in a while, very remiss I thought. So this morning we took off inland for the chalk hills and rolling arable farmland of the Dorset/Wiltshire border, and the heart of Cranborne Chase AONB. There was no one about as we made our way through the traditionally managed  coppice of Garston Wood, which over the years I've watched rise and fall through the coppice cycle. On along the fringe of Mistleberry Wood with its ancient earthworks, recently they've been managing the woodland through here too, cutting and clearing the woodland fringe and in so opening the boundary path right up. Then through the Forestry Commission mosaic woodland of  Stonedown Wood, before arriving atop the high chalk ridge and the Ox Drove. The views from the Ox Drove are expansive, you can see into 4 counties on a good day, and today was a good day. As we walked along the Ox Drove I soaked up as much of the scenery as I could, below the Ebble Valley revealed itself, with new sights continually coming into view as others disappeared behind pockets of woodland or were obscured by the undulous landscape. Lovely walking the high road, though it wasn't long before we took another track and disappeared back down into Stonedown Wood and our return journey. A majestic landscape, for sure.

Hare

Spring was certainly about in the Chase this morning. Driving along I turned a corner to find a hare sat nonchalantly in the middle of the road. I pulled to a stop and we both just looked at each other, before I broke the spell by going for my camera.  I just managed to snap a shot out of the car window before the hare disappeared over the brow of the hill. Always a lovely sight, a hare.

Light wave

Today bands of cloud scud across the sky driven by blustery winds, below them the light came in waves across the Chase as they passed, flooding Stonedown Wood with warm luminosity before ebbing away again, leaving the stands drained and quite flat by comparison. Still, lovely walking though.

Cranborne Chase and Winkelbury

The wrinkled landscape of Cranborne Chase is never boring, so wide ranging and varied as it is. It's a country landscape, of fields and hedgerows, scrubby woodland and coppice sheltering in its combes, rising above them exposed chalk grasslands reach for the skies, little changed in centuries, I'd imagine. Today was a good day for a walk in the chase, clear skies, an unseasonally warm feel, walking with an old friend who I don't see enough off (in fact the last time I saw him was last year, when we wandered the Chase). Our route was an undulating one, up through Garston Wood, with it's well managed Hazel coppice, down through Mistleberry Wood, up into Chase Woods following the Shire Rack, past Cuttice Lodge and up on to the Ox Drove, with it's fantastic views over four counties and on a good day as far the Isle of Wight. Man, it's always amazing to be up here, but on a clear day like today, it's something else.  We took a slight detour to wander about Winklebury, an Iron Age Hillfort positioned on a promontory overlooking the Berwick St John at the head of the Ebble Valley. It was excavated by Pitt-Rivers at the end of the 19th century who found evidence of Iron Age occupation, though I question whether it was a finished hillfort, it's defensive ramparts and ditches lack uniformity in nature and appear incomplete. The most striking features are the two linear outer ramparts and ditch defences some way from the main enclosure, which cut off the promontory.  The Chase is jam packed with archaeological features, it's always been a popular landscape. We made our way back down through Chase Wood, this time following the ups and downs of Chase Avenue, a neglected veteran Beech avenue, back through Mistleberry Wood with another Iron Age 'fort' which appears either incomplete or simply not a fort (I do wonder about some of the old Ministry of Works definitions of archaeological sites, several in the area appear suspect), before finally returning to Garston. Fantastic walk, longest I've done in a while too (12 miles of walking and talking), I've been slacking of late, must try harder. 

Common Spotted Orchid

I'm no expert, but I think this is a Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii), at first on seeing its shape I thought in could have been a Pyramidal orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis), though on closer examination it clearly wasn't; the flowers are all wrong for that. I find the thing with many of our orchid species is that unless they're very distinctive, like the Bee or Burnt Tip orchids, they can vary so much within their species in colour and form, that it's hard for a novice to be certain.