Blackmore Vale and Vale of Wardour

Its irregularly shaped area covers 78,414 hectares (302.76 sq mi) and runs from Batcombe in the southwest to Frome and Warminster in the northeast, and from Wincanton in the west to Compton Chamberlayne in the east.

Willows and alders along the banks of its streams and the hanging mists give it an almost wetland feel.

Thomas Hardy described it as "the beautiful Vale of Blackmoor... in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry.

In the east along the Vale of Wardour, settlement increases and arable farming is also more prevalent here.

The main watercourses are the rivers Stour, Nadder, Cale, Lydden, Frome, Brue and Wylye.