Weather disruption
Winter weather is causing disruption to services in some parts of the county. Find out what services may be affected in your area.
Winter weather is causing disruption to services in some parts of the county. Find out what services may be affected in your area.
The Clay Vale landscape type is found in a broken sweep across the north western parts of the county beyond the western and northern edges of the chalk escarpment.
The Clay Vale landscape is divided into distinct areas by either limestone, chalk and/or greensand ridges or hills and it extends north into Wiltshire and Somerset. It is represented in the west by the intimate bowl shaped Marshwood Vale and the smaller Halstock Vale and in north Dorset by the broader scale landscape of the Blackmore Vale, which is drained by the River Stour. It is very much a homogenous grassland landscape characterised by predominantly small pastoral fields with dense trimmed hedgerows, small woods or ribbons of trees and distinctive mature hedgerow oaks, which together combine to create a distinctive ‘fine grained’ consistent patchwork landscape. Many of these distinctive oaks are becoming ‘stag headed’ with age. There are patterns of medieval settlement and clearance and the areas have a long tradition of dairy farming. There are often open views across the undulating to flat pastoral landscape to the chalk, limestone or greensand hills and ridges, which enclose and define this landscape. The network of hedgelined twisting lanes and scattered farmsteads, hamlets and picturesque villages such as Halstock, Leigh and Milton on Stour, underpin the largely undeveloped, harmonious and tranquil character. Many of the small copses and woods are associated with these small hamlets, villages and farmsteads or are found as ribbons following the many small stream corridors. It is in this later situation that old pollards are found.
The overall management objective for the Clay Vale Landscape Type is to conserve the patterns that contribute to the rural, tranquil landscape of winding lanes and small-scattered settlements. Restoration of the elements, which are in decline such as the hedgerows, hedgerow trees and narrow corridors of wet woodlands is also a key objective.