Moreton, Dorset

St Nicholas' is a Church of England parish church at Moreton, Dorset, England. It is known for its thirteen windows, engraved by the poet and artist Sir Laurence Whistler. T. E. Lawrence was buried in the separate churchyard.

The Norcon pillbox is a type of hardened field fortification built in Britain during the invasion crisis of 1940–1941. It was a small circular pillbox named after the company that manufactured it as a private commercial venture. The Norcon pillbox was made from a concrete pipe 6 feet (1.8 m) diameter and 4 feet (1.2 m) high; the walls were 4 inches (10 cm) of non-reinforced concrete with several cut loopholes. The pipe would be sunk into the ground over a pit that would provide a total of 6 feet (1.8 m) headroom. The standard model had a roof made of timber, corrugated iron, and earth. Some installations were fitted with a concrete roof, others had no roof at all. The walls were given extra protection by a layer of sandbags. The exit may be via an open roof, through a hatch in the roof or through a low entrance cut into the pipe to a slit trench. Norcon was not the only company to design a defence made from pipes. A similar design was the Croft pillbox developed by the Croft Granite, Brick and Concrete Company. However, the Norcon was by far the most common and gave its name to the general type. Norcon Ltd was a small company specialising in the manufacture of large spun concrete pipes. In 1938, looking for new ways to market their products, the company experimented with producing air raid shelters. Although this venture does not appear to have been very successful, at least one very small and cramped Norcon shelter has recently been found. In July 1940, as Norcons were being installed, one officer raised concerns after one pipe section had broken while being rolled into position and an installed Norcon had not stood up well to a concentrated burst of machine gun fire. Concerns of these sorts have understandably led to the Norcon being regarded as "possibly the most dangerous, cheap and nasty of all pillbox designs"; certainly, it cannot have offered the protection equivalent to a conventional reinforced concrete pillbox, but according to the Chief Engineer of Eastern Command "it would appear to be considerably better than many sandbag emplacements under construction." The pipe was made from a high alumina fondue cement which set quickly, making it possible to turn out about 20 units a day. Also, the fondue cement cured quickly reaching a strength in 24 hours for which Portland cement required 28 days. Although relatively few were actually built, Norcons were found all over the United Kingdom, from southwest England to the Orkney Islands. Twenty-seven Norcon pillbox sites are recorded in the Defence of Britain database. Holding company Bowmaker purchased a controlling interest in Norcon Limited in 1943 and Norcon managed to show a profit; the company prospered after the end of hostilities.

Dragon was an experimental high temperature gas-cooled reactor at Winfrith in Dorset, England, operated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Its purpose was to test fuel and materials for the European High Temperature Reactor programme, which was exploring the use of tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) fuel and gas cooling for future high-efficiency reactor designs. The project was built and managed as an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency international project. In total, 13 countries were involved in its design and operation during the project lifetime. Originally conceived as a small research reactor, during the design phase it grew larger. The choice of helium coolant was made after a long debate within the UKAEA between proponents of helium and carbon dioxide, with helium ultimately selected. Groundbreaking occurred in 1960. It operated from 1965 to 1976, and is generally considered extremely successful. Dragon's construction was followed by similar work in the US, leading ultimately to the much larger Fort Saint Vrain Nuclear Power Plant. This suffered from a number of problems due to corrosion and the customer soured on the design. Contracts for similar models in the US that were being signed were cancelled, and although Dragon suffered none of these issues, no orders were forthcoming in Europe either. By this time the market had largely standardized on the pressurized water reactor (PWR) for the large buildout that occurred during the 1970s and 80s, and the decision was made to shut down Dragon. As of 2023, Dragon is being decommissioned.

Dorset Innovation Park (formerly Dorset Green Technology Park, and earlier known as Winfrith Technology Centre) is a science and technology park which is owned by the Homes and Communities Agency. The site was the former UKAEA Winfrith Atomic Energy Establishment which was in service from the 1950s to early 1990s. The Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor was also developed at the site. The centre is situated near the village of Winfrith Newburgh, which is some eight miles west of Wareham and nine miles east of Dorchester. It is now home to the Defence BattleLab, which was officially opened in May 2022.

Oakers Bog (grid reference SY813918) is a 30.7 hectare biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Dorset, notified in 1988. Part of Oakers Bog SSSI is owned by the Forestry Commission.

Tadnoll and Winfrith Heath is a nature reserve of the Dorset Wildlife Trust, near the village of Winfrith Newburgh in Dorset, England. There is heathland and wetland in the reserve. Winfrith Heath is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The wetland is designated a Ramsar site, and the reserve has been listed as a Special Area of Conservation.

Winfrith Atomic Energy Establishment, or AEE Winfrith, was a United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority site near Winfrith Newburgh in Dorset. It covered an area on Winfrith Heath to the west of the village of Wool between the A352 road and the South West Main Line. Winfrith was set up in order to test a variety of new nuclear reactor designs with the intention of selecting a new design for power generation and other tasks. The main design built at the site was the demonstration steam-generating heavy water reactor (SGHWR) providing power to the National Grid. A number of smaller designs were also constructed at the site. The site officially opened with the ZENITH reactor in 1960. SGHWR opened in 1967 and was shut down in 1990. All of the reactors have been shut down and are in various stages of removal. The site is now being re-used for other purposes while decommissioning continues.

Clouds Hill is an isolated cottage near Wareham in the county of Dorset in South West England. It is the former home of T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") and is owned by the National Trust. The site is in the parish of Turners Puddle in Purbeck District.

Cull-Peppers Dish (grid reference SY814926) is a 0.9-hectare (2.2-acre) sinkhole and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Dorset, notified in 1989. The name of the site and that of the nearby Culpeper's Spoon were possibly named after the herbalist Nicholas Culpeper. Locally legends attribute the pits to the devil and another pit near by is named Devil 's or Hell 's Pit. The site is used in Thomas Hardy's novel The Return of the Native as the place where Mrs Wildeve collects holly for a wreath.

Moreton railway station serves the villages of Moreton and Crossways in Dorset, England. It is operated by South Western Railway and is served by their trains between London Waterloo and Weymouth. The station is 130 miles 24 chains (209.7 km) down the line from Waterloo.

The TOG2, officially known as the Heavy Tank, TOG II, was a British super-heavy tank design produced during the early stages of World War II in the case that the battlefields of northern France devolved into a morass of mud, trenches and craters as had happened during World War I. When this did not happen the tank was deemed unnecessary and the project terminated. A development of the TOG I design, only a single prototype was built before its termination.

The Tank Museum (previously The Bovington Tank Museum) is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. It is about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the village of Wool and 12 miles (19 km) west of the major port of Poole. The collection traces the history of the tank. With almost 300 vehicles on exhibition from 26 countries it is the largest collection of tanks and the third largest collection of armoured vehicles in the world. It includes Tiger 131, the only working example of a German Tiger I tank, and a British First World War Mark I, the world's oldest surviving combat tank. It is the museum of the Royal Tank Regiment and the Royal Armoured Corps and is a registered charity.