Dorset's New Living Lanscape

I love Dorset and its rich variety of wildlife. I was therefore delighted to hear that a £2.7m grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund has helped to add a new Living Landscape to the 150 already in existence across the UK.

Dorset Wildlife Trust's hugely ambitious Great Heath encompasses the urban centres of Bournemouth and Poole and the internationally important Poole Harbour and Dorset Heaths. It also links The New Forest National Park to the east and the Wild Purbeck Nature Improvement Area to the west.

Partners include local authorities and conservation bodies. The grant enables them to buy 607ha (1500 acres) of land. Access, interpretation and management will improve for almost 100 wildlife sites and two long-distance trails.

"Buying the land from the Canford estate was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said DWT's Director of Operations, Brian Bleese. "We aim to develop an Urban Living Landscape with a strong geographical identity, rich in wildlife and valued by local people."

I am sure it will be valued by visitors to the area as well, including me.

The Kid on Slapton Beach

My wife and I visited Tyneham Village, Dorset last summer, the village where all residents were given short notice to leave just before Christmas 1943 when the surrounding area was commandeered by the then War Office (now MoD) for use as firing ranges for training troops. 252 people were displaced...

When I read an introduction to The Kid on Slapton Beach by Felicity Fair Thompson there was an immediate resonance with what I knew about Tyneham: "War is hard enough when your dad is missing in action and even harder when you have to leave everything you know and love. Twelve year old Harry is one of three thousand people leaving the coast in Devon during the Second World War as US troops move into  the area, planning secret D-Day rehearsals on the beach there in April 1944. But what if your most treasured possession is left behind?...."

I suppose words like 'The Kid'... 'dad'... '12 year old'... should have been clues to the target audience of this book, definitely written for the younger reader!

Never mind though, I grudgingly admit that I am rather enjoying it....

Wild Purbeck

There are few locations where I have enjoyed walking more than the Purbeck coast in Dorset. Miles of rolling grassland peppered with gorse and other scrub and an abundance of wild flowers. The coastal path west of Lulworth is a haven for wildlife.

The west arm of Lulworth Cove

The coastal path just east of Durdle Door

I saw several species of butterflies as I wandered along the path. A single Adonis Blue Lysandra bellargus landed close by, the most brilliant blue colour and the rarest of our downland blues. A privilege to see this beauty. Several silvery-blue Chalkhill Blues Lysandra corridon drifted over grass no doubt looking for the few knapweeds and scabiouses still evident. Small Whites Pieris rapae showed in abundance as too did Small Tortoiseshells Aglais urticae and a single Gatekeeper Pyronia tithonus.

As I watched the butterflies something entered my peripheral vision and I looked skyward just in time to lock my binoculars on a magnificent Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus drifting effortlessly on thermals as he flew by west to east. Following his flightpath brought a hovering Kestrel Falco tinnunculus into view. Further along the track I met up with one of the local rangers and asked the usual "Seen anything?" He pointed out a number of Yellow Wagtails Motacilla lava resting on nearby fence-posts, summer visitors no doubt thinking about their return journey south. Further along the fence we spotted a single Whinchat Saxicola rubetra, another summer visitor. We parted company and I wandered on past an area of low scrub and was lucky to see a skulking Stonechat Saxicola torquata. But the highlight had to be a pair of Ravens Corvus corax, the largest by far of the black crows, big-headed and wedge-tailed.

In February 2012 the Wild Purbeck area was designated as one of 12 Nature Improvement Areas across the country. It is an area of outstanding beauty that provides the naturist with a wealth of wildlife to see. Keep your eyes peeled and remember to keep looking up; you never know what might be passing overhead! 

Tyneham Village - A Casualty of War

The village of Tyneham is nestled in a remote valley in Dorset, five miles by road east of Kimmeridge. These five miles of single track road are twisting and tortuous, up hill and down. One wonders if you will ever arrive but I was determined to find this remote place, which just happens to be an anagram of the village where I was born: Teynham in Kent.

Tyneham was a thriving rural community. The inhabitants were farm workers and fishermen, who paid rent to the village owner Ralph Bond. He inherited the village in 1935 from his father William.

During the 2nd World War much of southern England saw a build up of troop encampments as preparations were made for the Normandy invasion that was to occur on 6th June 1944. Lulworth camp remains today and in 1940, following the evacuation at Dunkirk, thousands of men passed through this camp on the way back to their units.

In 1941 Tyneham House was requisitioned by the Royal Air Force as an administrative centre for the radar station at Brandy Bay, which lay to the east of Tyneham. In 1942 Winston Churchill inspected tanks at Lulworth. The writing was on the wall for the fate to befall Tyneham village.

In November 1943 Winston Churchill's War Cabinet issued clearance notices to all 106 properties in an area of approximately 12 square miles, including Tyneham Village. It was necessary for the British Army to extend its existing training area. The residents were given just one month to leave. And they were never to return. When the residents left they pinned this poignant notice to the church door:

"Please treat the church and houses with care. We have given up our homes where many of us have lived for generations, to help win the war to keep men free. We will return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly".

In 1945 with the Cold War looming the newly elected government decided to retain the valley and the villagers could not return.

Tyneham church has been beautifully restored

In 1952, Ralph Bond, the last Squire of Tyneham, died "still bitterly unreconciled to the loss of Tyneham and deeply wounded by the government's shabby behaviour and broken promise to return Tyneham to him and its former inhabitants".

In 1967 the Tyneham Action Group was launched by Rodney Legg to campaign for the release of Tyneham and the return of its former families. The publicity produced by this and subsequent groups eventually forced the government to take action. The Lulworth Range land however stayed with the army. But, since 1978 the Army has worked with the Purbeck Heritage Coast project to develop public access to the village (or should I say, the ruins of the village) and surrounding coast and countryside. Buildings have been made safe, coastal paths and walks have been way-marked and information is provided for visitors to the valley.

The remains of Post Office Row, Tyneham

The remains of Rectory Cottages, Tyneham

Part of St. Mary's church interior, Tyneham

Before the 2nd World War, Tyneham was just one of many small isolated Dorset villages. Its residents led a simple life, relying mainly on farming and fishing for their livelihood, oblivious to the future events which would give their home a special place in history. Today the village remains part of the MoD Lulworth Ranges. Only the empty buildings remain, trapped in a time warp. The only positive thought I had as I wandered quietly through the ruins was that the area has remained protected from many of the modern developments that, elsewhere, has changed the face of the Dorset countryside. I thought about the families wrenched from their homes, only allowed to take with them a few chattels. Families that were never allowed to return.

The casualties of war, long forgotten by most... It left me deeply saddened.

  

West to Isle of Purbeck

Ros and I are heading west to Dorset and the Isle of Purbeck. Well, it's not actually an island but its geographical inaccessibility makes it feel like one. Our journey will take us along the A27 and M27, over Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth and Poole and through Wareham to our destination of West Lulworth and the Lulworth Cove Inn http://lulworth-coveinn.co.uk

There is much to see in this area of Dorset including Corfe Castle, the Swanage to Norden steam railway, Shell Bay with its superb, soft sands, Durdle Door, Dorset's iconic geographical landform and one of the highlights of the Jurassic Coast, and Tyneham, the village that was evacuated in World War ll and has remained eerily empty ever since.

Probably won't have much opportunity to post over the next week so it's TTFN....