Hartland Moor

The Purbeck Mining Museum exists to preserve and interpret the historic extractive industries in ball clay mining in the Isle of Purbeck. The museum is located adjacent to Norden station on the Swanage Railway and is open from the end of March to the end of September on weekends, some weekdays and Bank Holidays. A redundant mine has been relocated to Norden with a railway laid around the site, a new engine shed and the restoration of wagons that worked on the lines around Norden. One of the future aims of the museum is to construct a new building at Norden to house Secundus, a 2-foot 8 inch steam loco, wagons and other artefacts not on display at present. It will also contain a library and education centre. It is planned to extend the narrow gauge railway to the other side of the Swanage Branch line to land owned by the group via Bridge 15. In 2010 a structural engineer surveyed Bridge 15, a skew bridge over the Swanage Railway. The condition of the bridge was good for a "temporary" bridge built in 1885. Since then the Bridge has been involved in a serious incident in which it has been severely damaged.

Norden railway station is a railway station located one mile to the north of the village of Corfe Castle, on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. It is situated on the Swanage Railway, a heritage railway that operates over the former London and South Western Railway line from Wareham to Swanage. Norden is the northern terminus of the railway's steam service from Swanage, and an intermediate stop on the railway's diesel hauled service that connects Swanage with the national rail network at Wareham station. The site is the home of the Purbeck Mineral and Mining Museum, a museum about the history of ball clay mining in the Isle of Purbeck. The museum includes the relocated header building of one of the areas last underground mines, together with a reconstruction of an underground gallery. There is also a section of the narrow gauge railway that served the clay industry, and a collection of narrow gauge rolling stock. A large car park, provided by Purbeck District Council, allows the station to function as a park & ride facility for the tourist centres of Corfe Castle and Swanage.

Gigger's Island is an island in Poole Harbour in the English county of Dorset. The island is situated near to the Frome and Piddle rivers, near to the opening of Poole Harbour. The entrance to the harbour is lit to the north of Gigger's Island. Historically, the island was part of the boundary of the parish of Arne, and in 2006, the island was purchased by the Dorset Wildfowlers Association. Landing on the island is only permitted below the high water mark, and at nighttime the island is sometimes home to 20,000 gulls.

Ridge is a village in the English county of Dorset. It is situated on the south bank of the River Frome, about half a mile due south east of the town of Wareham. Ridge forms part of the civil parish of Arne, within the Purbeck local government district. A wharf on the River Frome at Ridge was once a major transhipment point for Purbeck Ball Clay. The clay was brought to the wharf by the Furzebrook Railway, and transferred to barges for the voyage to Poole Harbour. The railway is now abandoned, and the wharf has become a marina.

Blue Pool is a flooded, disused clay pit where Purbeck ball clay was once extracted. It is now a lake within the Furzebrook Estate, a 25-acre (10 ha) park of heath woodland and gorse near Furzebrook on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset, southern England.Furzebrook Estate is about 3 mi (5 km) south of Wareham and 2 mi (3 km) west of Corfe Castle. The pool started life early in the 17th century as a chalk pit. Purbeck ball clay was dug from the pit from the mid-17th century to the early 20th century. The ball clay was used to make fine ceramic products, such as smoking pipes, plates, cups and tea pots. The pit became disused before the First World War, but ball clay is still extracted from other pits in the area. The title 'blue' arose because there are minute particles of clay in colloidal suspension within the water. These suspensions variously diffract the light depending on the particles' size (with differences in size often linked to changes in concentration and pH), yielding colours from red-brown, through grey and green, to the more typical turquoise. The metallic blue sometimes found in photographs is more likely to be a reflection of the sky, as the attraction's own website makes no such claim for the water, and their leaflets call it “a turquoise jewel set in the heart of Purbeck”. In 1935 a café was opened at the site. There is also a museum and gift shop. In 1985 the estate was declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Now law protects the habitat of a variety of rare plants and animals. The site includes nature reserves managed by the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation and a private nature reserve. Blue Pool is now a popular tourist attraction, especially because it is a place of peace and tranquillity. The pool is surrounded by 25 acres (10 ha) of heathland. The nationally rare Dorset heath and marsh gentian are common to the area. The estate is crossed by a network of sandy paths. There are steps down to the edge of the pool and there are also steps on some paths around the pool, but there is also a completely flat route around the pool, which is suitable for wheelchairs. The lush vegetation around the pool is inhabited by grey squirrels, rabbits and badgers. The Estate supports numerous rare birds, amphibians and reptiles. Visitors may therefore be lucky enough to spot the Dartford warbler or the nightjar. Both of Britain's endangered and protected reptiles, the green sand lizard and the smooth snake, live here in considerable numbers. There are also many dragonflies and the rare Sika deer.

Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and commands a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. The first phase was one of the earliest castles in England to be built at least partly using stone when the majority were built with earth and timber. Corfe Castle underwent major structural changes in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1572, Corfe Castle left the Crown's control when Elizabeth I sold it to Sir Christopher Hatton. Sir John Bankes bought the castle in 1635, and was the owner during the English Civil War. While Bankes was fighting in London and Oxford, his wife, Lady Mary Bankes, led the defence of the castle when it was twice besieged by Parliamentarian forces. The first siege, in 1643, was unsuccessful, but by 1645 Corfe was one of the last remaining royalist strongholds in southern England and fell to a siege ending in an assault. In March that year Corfe Castle was slighted on Parliament's orders. Owned by the National Trust, the castle is open to the public and in 2018 received around 237,000 visitors. It is protected as a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Monument.

Corfe Castle Hundred was a hundred in the county of Dorset, England, containing only the parish of Corfe Castle. It was sometimes also referred to as Corfe Castle Liberty.

The River Piddle or Trent or North River is a small rural Dorset river which rises in the Dorset Downs and flows into Poole Harbour near Wareham.

Furzebrook is a small village on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset in the south of England. It is about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Wareham and 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Corfe Castle, and is in the civil parish of Church Knowle. The name Furzebrook derives from the furze/gorse and a brook. The first use of the name was probably by Furzebrook Farm. Furzebrook became the centre of the clay industry as all the local Purbeck Ball Clay was taken there to ripen by exposing. The clay was repeatedly turned for six months. As the ball clay ripened it acquired plasticity and became suitable to mix with various other clays which made them more plastic. At Furzebrook there are several narrow-gauge railway tracks; these converged from outlying local mines and claypits, the Furzebrook Railway. A further narrow-gauge line ran to Ridge Wharf. As the Wareham to Swanage branch line of the London and South Western Railway was built it passed through Furzebrook and therefore a lot of clay was transferred via the mainline trains. Furzebrook is now well known as being the railhead for the oil extracted from the local Wytch Farm oil well.

Corfe Castle is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. It is the site of a ruined castle of the same name. The village and castle stand over a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. The village lies in the gap below the castle and is around four miles (6.4 km) south-east of Wareham, and four miles (6.4 km) north-northwest of Swanage. Both the main A351 road from Lytchett Minster to Swanage and the Swanage Railway thread their way through the gap and the village. The civil parish of Corfe Castle stretches across the width of the Isle of Purbeck, with coasts facing both the English Channel and Poole Harbour. It, therefore, includes sections of both the low-lying sandy heathland that lies to the north of the castle and the rugged Jurassic Coast upland to the south.

Corfe Castle Town Hall is a municipal building in West Street, Corfe Castle, Dorset, England. The town hall, which is currently used as a museum, is a Grade II* listed building.

The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the north. Its western boundary is less well defined, with some medieval sources placing it at Flower's Barrow above Worbarrow Bay. John Hutchins, author of The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, defined Purbeck's western boundary as the Luckford Lake steam, which runs south from the Frome. According to writer and broadcaster Ralph Wightman, Purbeck "is only an island if you accept the barren heaths between Arish Mell and Wareham as cutting off this corner of Dorset as effectively as the sea." The most southerly point is St Alban's Head (archaically St. Aldhelm's Head). From 1974 to 2019, the whole of the Isle of Purbeck lay within the local government district of Purbeck, which was named after it. The district extended significantly further north and west than the traditional boundary of the Isle of Purbeck along the River Frome. Following the abolition of the district on 1 April 2019, the Isle now lies within the Dorset unitary authority area. In terms of natural landscape areas, the southern part of the Isle of Purbeck and the coastal strip as far as Ringstead Bay in the west, have been designated as National Character Area 136 - South Purbeck by Natural England. To the north are the Dorset Heaths and to the west, the Weymouth Lowlands.