The Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership Scheme
The Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership works to protect and enhance the special landscape of Cranborne Chase and Chalke Valley.
With Cranborne Chase National Landscape as the lead partner, and with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, this five-year partnership is working with local communities to better connect people with the landscape.
We are delivering 20 different projects which provide benefits to individuals, communities, heritage and the landscape. These projects cover the natural, historic and cultural landscape of the area.
The project has been extended to the end of June 2025, to continue the work and ensure the legacy of a select number of these projects.
The Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership area
The projects are focused within the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, called the Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership Area. It lies between Shaftesbury, Blandford Forum, Salisbury and Coombe Bissett – about 254 km2.
Why this area?
- A distinctive chalk landscape
- The heart of a medieval royal hunting ground
- A landscape steeped in prehistory
- Celebrated by artists and writers
- In an international Dark Skies Reserve
- Home to protected species
There have always been historical, natural and social links between the valley and the Chase downland, and the Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership explores and reinforces these links, by better connecting our communities to the area.
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Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership projects
Natural Landscape- A Crystal Clear Ebble – protecting and restoring the river Ebble.
- Nurturing Nature – improving biodiversity across the area.
- Wonderful Woodlands – bringing woodlands back into active management.
- Starry, Starry Nights – celebrating our dark skies and our designation as a Dark Sky Reserve.
- Greater Grazing – improving biodiversity at Martin Down.
Historic Landscape- Champions of the Past – exploring the remarkable archaeology of the Chase & Chalke area.
- Heritage Training for Schools – equipping teachers to understand and teach the local heritage.
- Bringing the Landscape to Life – Time Travellers of Cranborne Chase is an AR app exploring extraordinary people and places of the area.
Cultural Landscape- Ancient Ways – exploring and improving the area’s cycle footpaths and creating new tramper ways.
- Memories Captured – an oral history project capturing the voices of local people.
- Communities Caring for Heritage – a Grant scheme to support local heritage for communities.
- Celebration in Silk – communities working with artists to create silk flags.
- Artists’ Residencies – inspiring works reflective of the landscape, history and culture of the area.
- Characters of the Chase – characters associated with the Chase brought to life through performance.
- Voices in the Landscape – musicians engaging with the landscape through songs, old and new.
- Words in the Landscape – bringing together writers, poets, storytellers and readers.
- ChalkEscape Walking Festival – an annual walking festival featuring guided walks.
- Roman Rally Living History – re-enacting Roman life in the Cranborne Chase.
- The Curious Dorset Cursus – reflecting the ceremonial and ritual use of the Neolithic earthwork.
- Celebrate Chase & Chalke – bringing communities together to celebrate the scheme.
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Chase & Chalke scheme summary
The detail of how our Landscape Partnership Scheme will be delivered is contained in our Landscape Conservation Action Plan:
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What makes the area special
Landscape partnership schemes focus on areas that have distinctive landscape character.
The Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership Scheme projects are focused on a certain distinctive area within the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, rather than being spread over the whole of the Cranborne Chase area which is quite large.
The natural landscape
The natural ecology and geology of the landscape here is a unique mixture that supports a vast array of species in a relatively small area.
Chalk downland
Rare, dramatic and supporting a dizzying array of biodiversity – the chalk escarpments of this area are expressed in distinctive sculpted landforms, open vistas and valleys. Though sometimes dramatic, the chalk downlands offer a very accessible experience of nature.
Arable land
The extensive arable fields are home to brown hare and farmland bird species, such as corn bunting, linnet, turtle dove, grey partridge, lapwing and yellowhammer.
Rare arable flowers, such as shepherd’s needle, thrive in the Chase & Chalke area in pockets, as do the prickly poppy, rough poppy, with its distinctive seed pods, and Venus’s looking-glass, whose mirror-like oval fruits inside the seed-capsule give the plant its name.
Juniper, one of the rarest plants in the UK due to a complex set of circumstances including climate change, loss of habitat, changes in management of suitable habitats and increasing populations of rabbits, can also be spotted, as can knotted hedge-parsley.
In spring you can see profusions of cowslip — a favourite of the Duke of Burgundy butterfly, which can be found in parts of the region, as can the nationally scarce checked-wing marsh fritillary. Rare bats call this area home too.
Woodlands
The landscape is overlain by a woodland mosaic that includes eye-catching hilltop copses, ancient parkland trees and avenues, and extensive areas of wooded downland and ancient forest which supports internationally rare species of fungus and invertebrates.
The River Ebble
Over 80% of all the chalk streams in the world are found in southern England. Chalk streams are spring fed, rich in flora and fauna, and have very clear waters. The River Ebble, a chalk stream — a globally rare habitat — runs through the valley and is a Wild Trout Protection Zone, as well as a haven for otters and water voles.
High level of ancient habitats surviving to the modern day
Many of the habitats present in this area have survived from ancient times. These include the ancient woodlands, chalk streams and lowland chalk grasslands. This is partly due to the protection of the land as a medieval royal hunting ground.
The historic landscape
The landscape of Cranborne Chase is etched with the visible imprint of the past.
Nowhere else in southern England will you find such a diverse mixture of prehistoric settlements, burial mounds and ceremonial centres, Roman roads (such as Ackling Dyke) and villas, Dark Ages defensive boundaries, Norman castles and medieval manors.
These include earthworks, former settlements, field systems and water meadows, with a high level of survival of medieval land use patterns, woodland archaeology and a wealth of prehistoric, Roman and Saxon archaeological sites notable for nationally important monument groups forming ceremonial complexes or monumental landscapes.
Concentrations of ancient enclosures can be found, as well as ancient woodland and former common land with numerous ancient hilltop forts and barrows.
Within the Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership Scheme area alone there are approximately 250 Scheduled Ancient Monuments made up of grassy lumps, bumps and ditches so large that it is hard to believe they were cut by hand with flint tools.
If you look hard enough you can see funnelled boundaries and entrance points where the Romans are likely to have monitored trade and passage between administrative areas. These even pre-date current county boundaries. Veteran trees were used for pagan purposes; coppice was possibly planted as a form of defence from cavalry, rather than as a woodland crop, or for pales to keep the deer in certain areas. Larches were left to be turned into lofty lookout towers to monitor deer across the ‘chase’. This very word comes from hunting, a pastime enjoyed by royal figures through history, such as King John, King Henry VIII and King James I.
The cultural landscape
The Chase & Chalke area’s outstanding landscape evokes a strong sense of the iconic English countryside. The distinctive vibrant villages, profoundly rural character and historic traditions give the area its sense of place. It is a living landscape, which continues to be influenced by those who work with and manage the land and contribute to the local rural economy. The landscape provides important ecosystem services that deliver benefits such as fresh food, water, fuel and clean air, along with less tangible benefits of inspiration, health and wellbeing.
A legacy of designed landscapes
The area boasts a concentration of historic parklands, estates and manor houses, together with historic parks and gardens of national and county importance, including Rushmore Park.
Literary, artistic and cultural associations
The area has been celebrated in the works of numerous important artists, archaeologists, scholars and writers.
A peaceful, profoundly rural and living landscape
This is a sparsely populated and largely unspoilt area, with a strong sense of remoteness, tranquillity and expansive dark night skies, which is maintained as a living agricultural landscape.
Distinctive settlement pattern
A largely intact pre-1750 historic settlement pattern of villages with a dense concentration of listed buildings are seen along the river valley, on the downland and along the scarp spring line (such as Sixpenny Handley, Tollard Royal, Ashmore, Berwick St John, Broad Chalke, Iwerne Minster, Bishopstone, Coombe Bissett, Tarrant Gunville, Bowerchalke and Martin).
A strong sense of place and local distinctiveness
This is represented by the use of local vernacular building styles and materials (knapped flint, brick, cob, clunch, clay tiles and straw thatch) and small-scale vernacular features (such as sunken lanes and distinctive black and white signposts).
The National Lottery Heritage Fund
In 2019 The Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership Scheme was awarded a £1.68million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. With match-funding from partners, the five-year scheme totals £2.7million. The projects aim to do the following:
- Conserve, enhance & restore key features of natural, historic and cultural heritage.
- Offer opportunities to develop awareness, understanding and enjoyment together with knowledge, skills and volunteering to provide a lasting legacy for the future.
- Provide opportunities for individuals and communities, near and far, young and old, to care for local heritage.
- Foster pride in the unique and rich heritage of this landscape.
All this work is only possible because of the millions of people who play the National Lottery every week.
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Other Chase & Chalke partners and funders
The scheme is managed by a core Chase & Chalke team, as well as a group of organisations and representatives across Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.
The partners and funders of the scheme are vital for its continued work. Some members of the partnership deliver certain projects or aspects of the Scheme.
Our partners are:
East Dorset Antiquarian Society
Dorset Local Nature Partnership
Cranborne Chase Landscape Trust
Our funders are:
The National Lottery Heritage Fund
P. Marland Charitable Trust
Cranborne Chase Landscape Trust
South West Wiltshire Area Board (Wiltshire Council)
With thanks to all our partners and funders
Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership Project Team
The Project Team comprises a Scheme Manager, two Heritage and Engagement Officers, a Ranger and Volunteer Co-ordinator, a Communications Officer and an Admin and Finance Officer. See our Meet the Team page to find out more about them and their work.