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Purbeck Hills

Hills of DorsetIsle of Purbeck
Creech, snowy ridge top view geograph.org.uk 464607
Creech, snowy ridge top view geograph.org.uk 464607

The Purbeck Hills, also called the Purbeck Ridge or simply the Purbecks, are a ridge of chalk downs in Dorset, England. It is formed by the structure known as the Purbeck Monocline. The ridge extends from Lulworth Cove in the west to Old Harry Rocks in the east, where it meets the sea. The hills are part of a system of chalk downlands in southern England formed from the Chalk Group which also includes Salisbury Plain and the South Downs. For most of their length the chalk of the Purbeck Hills is protected from coastal erosion by a band of resistant Portland limestone. Where this band ends, at Durlston Head, the clay and chalk behind has been eroded, creating Poole Bay and the Solent. The ridge of steeply dipping chalk that forms the Purbeck Hills continues further east on the Isle of Wight. The height of the chalk ridge and proximity to Poole Harbour and the south coast have made the hills of strategic importance. There are a number of Iron Age, Roman and Saxon archaeological sites, such as Nine Barrow Down. At Corfe Castle the hills are broken twice leaving a steep round hill between the ridges on which stood a medieval castle, guarding the only easy route through the hills, until the English Civil War of the 17th century, when it was slighted. Some of the ridge, around the village of Tyneham, near Lulworth, has been closed to the public for use by the army as a firing range. This has protected them from damage from farming and development, and these areas are now nature reserves. At the eastern end Ballard Down is a National Trust nature reserve which is managed for its calcareous grassland habitat.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Purbeck Hills (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 50.633333333333 ° E -2.1166666666667 °
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BH20 5NX , Steeple with Tyneham
England, United Kingdom
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Creech, snowy ridge top view geograph.org.uk 464607
Creech, snowy ridge top view geograph.org.uk 464607
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Nearby Places

Steeple, Dorset
Steeple, Dorset

Steeple is a hamlet and former civil parish, now in the civil parish of Steeple with Tyneham, in the Purbeck district of the English county of Dorset. It is situated 8 miles (13 km) west of the coastal resort town of Swanage at the foot of Ridgeway Hill. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 60. The civil parish was abolished on 1 April 2014 and merged with Tyneham to form Steeple with Tyneham.The Gerrard family of Longhide were the principal landowners here fromb the fourteenth to the sixteenth century; the lands then passed by inheritance to the Napier family. The ancient Norman church of Steeple, dedicated to St Michael and All Angels, lacks a steeple. It has a coat of arms engraved in stone in the porch and another painted in scarlet of the roof interior that is precisely the same as George Washington's coat of arms, showing stars and stripes. The Washington arms is quartered with those of the squires of Steeple village, the Lawrence family, who are allied with the Washingtons by the marriage of one of its sons, Edmund Lawrence, to Agnes de Wessington in 1390. The flag of the US capital hangs inside the church, presented on 25 July 1977 by Walter E Washington, Mayor of Washington DC from 2 January 1975 - 2 January 1979 On the highest local point of the nearby Purbeck Ridge is an 18th-century folly built by the former owner of Creech Grange and known as Grange Arch. Today it is a Grade II listed building owned by the National Trust.