Exploring Our Historic Landscape

The special landscapes of the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs are a product of their unique historical development. This section of the website is a gateway which allows you to explore this historical legacy.

Key themes which are especially important to this landscape and which you can explore here include:

• The history and influence of the Medieval hunting areas such as the Cranborne Chase.
• The landscape legacy of the great estates and landowners.
• Rich local domestic style of architecture.
• Groupings of nationally important prehistoric monuments.
• Complex systems of historic routeways

Alternatively you can explore the ways in which people have interacted with their landscape over the millenia using the Interactive Timeline.

Finally this landscape has played an important part in development of archaeology, and in particular the work of the great General Pitt Rivers. This legacy is explored further in our section on the history of archaeological discovery in the AONB