The Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONB is by and large a landscape owned by estates both great and small. It is therefore dotted with landscape parks and historic gardens often associated with great houses. Some of these, such as Longleat and Stourhead, are of national renown and are widely visited; others are only known locally. All form important focal points in the landscape, and form areas which are not just pleasing to the eye but are also mentally stimulating and challenging. Many are also associated with the remnants of older parkland features such as medieval deer parks; these are intrinsically linked with the medieval chase which forms such an integral part of the AONB.

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The map illustrates the distribution of ornamental and designed landscapes through today's landscape in the AONB. These are widely distributed across the AONB, with clusters in the Vale of Wardour and linear distributions across the south-eastern edge of the AONB, and the greensand terrace in the northwest corner of the AONB.

These landscapes consist of 3 main features: -

1. Smaller Formal gardens

2. Remnants of deer parks including park pales and boundaries

3. Landscaped parks designed with a great house at its focus. They were often created around walked circuits, extensive views, carriage drives, or water features and often consist of carefully crafted views. They consisted of large areas of grassland interspersed with individual and clumps of trees.

Deer Parks

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The peak time for the creation of the deer parks was the medieval period. Their primary function was as game reserves and hunting grounds, but they also contributed to the wider medieval economy and served as areas for contemplation and recreation. The map shows the location of known deer parks in the AONB.

A desk based survey, using published sources, has been undertaken of the medieval deer parks of the AONB (Barker 2006), available from the AONB office, which gives a brief report on each site. Some of these deer parks continued into the post medieval period, and were incorporated into the 18th century landscaped parks. Seven parks are identified as previous types in the HLC dataset including the parks of Wardour, Longleat and Harbins Park.

Follow the link to download Section 5.6 of the HLC Report PDF (890 Kb) - a more detailed description of the historic character of ornamental & designed landscapes in the AONB.