Bournemouth and Dorset

The Dorset Year

Spring

Spring arrives with the catkins, lambs tail flowers of the hazel tree. In dark woods the ramsons flourish covering the earth with their dark, lush foliage and starry blooms, filling the air with their pungent, garlic aroma. The sea cliffs are full of birds, gulls and guillemots. Fulmars wheel and dash from the cliffs after there long winter sojourn. Now is the time for raising the next generation, the mated pairs must chose and guard a suitable spot on the steep rock, safe from the predators that may steal eggs and capture their young chicks. Bluebells flower from hilltops to woodland glade, in such profusion it is as though some immense hand had spilt azure powder over the land.

 

Summer

Flowers bloom everywhere. Scarlet poppies, lavender scabious, the yellows of evening primrose and mullion, a riot of competing colours threaten to overwhelm the eye. Thousands of pyramidal orchids cover the chalk downlands, their rarer cousins, the bee and spider orchids nestle amongst them attracting insect pollinators with the complexity of their dark flower heads. Deer suckle their young in the warm sun. Chicks fatten and mature as their parents work hard to feed them in preparation for the harsher conditions to come, readying them for their long migrations. On the heaths the pink and purple heathers flower, alive with bees frantically storing nectar for the long months of winter.

 

Autumn

The year begins to slow. The fruits of the bramble and blackthorn, blackberries and sloes ripen in the weakening sun. Scarlet rose hips cluster in the hedgerows alongside the wispy seeds of old man's beard. Small birds are leaving now, redstart and wheatear, heading south for the winter, the sweet fruits providing them with the fuel they need for their flights. The brown hedgehog seed heads of the teasel stand proud above the withering grass. In the woods stranger fruits begin to appear, umbrella headed fungi, some gray and pale, some scarlet and gaudy, all alien, hidden for the rest of the year.

 

Winter

As the days darken all is quiet, the growth and vibrancy of the year has faded to the muted tones of winter. Only the tough, thorny gorse still bravely flowers, as the country folk say, "When gorse is out of season, kissing's out of fashion". Dry bracken covers the woodland floor in a snug blanket of copper. However, this is not the end, only the beginning, nature sleeps, marshalling its energy before another great effort. As the first birds return to the sea cliffs, snowdrops push their blooms through the frost, braving the chill air, signalling the start of another year.

 

Dorset Weather

Dorset is famed for its mild climate. Its location as one of the most southerly counties in England confers a high average temperature. However its central position means that it does not experience the more extreme rainfall found in the more westerly parts of the United Kingdom or the cooler winter temperatures in the east.

This equitable climate accounts for some of the unusual wildlife found in the county. The little egret, a species originally found in continental Europe now breeds in Poole Harbour.

Dorset Facts and Figures

• Dorset is an average sized county on the south coast of England. Its population is 399,900 with an additional 300,500 people living in the unitary authorities of Bournemouth and Poole.
• A county is the medium level of governmental organisation used in the United Kingdom, larger than a town but smaller than a country. The word county is derived from the French word Comte, meaning a Count, the traditional ruler of such an area. The term is a direct equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon word shire which it replaced after the Norman Conquest. Consequently the appellation 'shire' to a county name indicates that the area has been defined since Anglo-Saxon times. Dorset is traditionally known as Dorsetshire.
• Dorset is ranked second in the United Kingdom for the quality of its living environment, both natural and constructed.
• 1229 km² of Dorset has been designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 50% of its total land area.
• Dorset has outstanding levels of biodiversity. 90% of all of the UK's bird species, 85% of mammals, 80% of butterflies, 70% of dragonflies and all of its reptiles and amphibians are found in the county.
• 114km of the Dorset coast is designated by UNESCO as part of the Jurassic Coast, England's only natural World Heritage Site.
• The county is oil rich. The Wytch Farm Oil Field is the largest onshore site in Europe and is expected to continue production until 2020-2025. The field is set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and consequently special provision has been made so that the site does not spoil the natural environment. Wytch Farm is not Dorset's only oil site. The well at Kimmeridge has been pumping oil since 1959 and is the oldest continuously operating well in the world.
• The county town of Dorset is the historic Roman settlement of Dorchester.
• Dorchester, immortalised as Casterbridge by local writer Thomas Hardy who was born in the nearby village of Higher Bockhampton, was site of Judge Jeffries' infamous Bloody Assizes. It is expanding due to the construction of Prince Charles' experimental Poundbury, built on Duchy of Cornwall land on the outskirts of the older town.
• Hardy is a very common Dorsetshire surname. The tower known as Hardy's Monument, standing on the hills to the south-east of the town of Dorchester, is dedicated not to the writer Thomas Hardy, but to the Captain of HMS Victory, Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, remembered in Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's final words.
• Dorset has a long association with military service. The earliest experiments in tank warfare were held near the village of Lulworth, still the site of the Royal Armoured Corps AFV Training school. It was Rudyard Kipling who, upon seeing the hulks of the early tank prototypes in Lulworth, suggested that they should be put in a museum. The oldest of these prototypes is now part of the Tank Museum's collection at Bovington Camp, home of the RAC.