Cranborne Chase (grid reference ST970180) is an area of central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. It is part of the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
The area is dominated by, and often considered to be synonymous with, a chalk downland plateau.[1] Part of the English Chalk Formation, it is adjacent to Salisbury Plain and the West Wiltshire Downs in the north, and the Dorset Downs to the south west. The highest point is Win Green Down, in Wiltshire, at 910 feet (280 m).[2]
Historically a medieval hunting forest, the area is also noted for its Neolithic and Bronze age archaeology and its rural agricultural character.[2]
- ^ Pitt-Rivers, Michael (1966). Dorset: a Shell Guide. London: Faber & Faber. p. 65.
Cranborne Chase is now the name for the chalk uplands of East Dorset as far as the escarpment which overlooks the Blackmore Vale.
- ^ a b Hawkins, Desmond (1981). Cranborne Chase. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. ISBN 0575027681.