Cranborne Chase

Cranborne Chase (grid reference ST970180) is an area of central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire.

[2] Historically a medieval hunting forest, the area is also noted for its Neolithic and Bronze age archaeology and its rural agricultural character.

To the south the chalk gently slopes, giving way more subtly to the Dorset Heaths landscape around Verwood and Wimborne Minster.

The dense woodland originally covering the downs would have gradually been cleared by the first farmers, but would have grown back repeatedly over the centuries as soils became exhausted and the agricultural carrying capacity of the land was exceeded several times over the course of six millennia.

Analysis of remains found in some of the Bronze Age burial mounds, by experts at Bournemouth University, has revealed that many of the bones had small holes drilled in then, enabling them, it is hypothesised, to have been articulated by means of wooden pegs, i.e. the skeletons were prevented from falling apart during repeated removal and re-burial.

[11] During the Saxon invasion of England the Romano-British kept the invaders out of Dorset by building Bokerley Dyke, a defensive ditch, across the Roman Road that runs across the downs from Dorchester to Old Sarum.

The word "chase" comes from the hunts, frequented by royalty (including Kings John, Henry VIII and James I), which took place on the downs.

His possessions were confiscated by Queen Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror; on her death, it passed to the Crown, and was granted, with other lands forming the feudal barony of Gloucester, to Robert Fitzhamon in 1083.

[15][16] An area of 1,115 acres (451 ha) of Cranborne Chase has been notified as a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, notification initially taking place in 1975.