Donhead Hollow from Win Green - geograph

The Blackmoor Vale and Vale of Wardour area is a natural region in the counties of Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire in southern England. The region is listed as National Character Area 133 by Natural England, the UK Government's advisor on the natural environment. Its irregularly shaped area covers and runs from Batcombe in the southwest to Frome and Warminster in the northeast, and from Wincanton in the west to Compton Chamberlayne in the east. To the west are the

Yeovil Scarplands The Yeovil Scarplands are a natural region in southern England in the counties of Somerset and Dorset. The region is listed as National Character Area 140 by Natural England, the UK Government's advisor on the natural environment. It covers an ...

, to the north are the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...

and Avon Vales, to the south and east are the scarps of the

Dorset Downs The Dorset Downs are an area of chalk downland in the centre of the county Dorset in south west England. The downs are the most western part of a larger chalk formation which also includes (from west to east) Cranborne Chase, Salisbury Plain, Ham ...

and the

West Wiltshire Downs The West Wiltshire Downs is an area of downland in the west of the county of Wiltshire, England. The West Wiltshire Downs are geologically the same unit as Salisbury Plain to the north and Cranborne Chase to the south. The West Wiltshire Downs a ...

.''NCA 133: Blackmore Vale & the Vale of Wardour - Key Facts & Data''
at www.naturalengland.org.uk. Accessed on 6 Apr 2013.''Blackmore Vale and Vale of Wardour - Character Area 133''
at www.naturalengland.org.uk. Accessed on 6 Apr 2013. The heart of

Blackmoor Vale The Blackmore Vale (; less commonly spelt ''Blackmoor'') is a vale, or wide valley, in north Dorset, and to a lesser extent south Somerset and southwest Wiltshire in southern England. Geography The vale is part of the Stour valley, part of t ...

and the

Vale of Wardour The Vale of Wardour encompasses the valley of the River Nadder in the county of Wiltshire, England. Geography Topography The Vale of Wardour lies east of the town of Shaftesbury and is a relatively small but varied landscape. Named after the ...

is the lush, clay vales, mainly given over to pasture, and characterized by an even pattern of straight-sided, hedged fields, scattered woodlands, dense hedgerows and common hedgerow trees. Willows and alders along the banks of its streams and the hanging mists give it an almost wetland feel.

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

described it as "the beautiful Vale of Blackmoor... in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry."Hardy, Thomas (1891). ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles'', Harper & Bros, NY., p. 9. There are few villages; instead farmsteads and hamlets dot the landscape. To the east and north the view is interrupted by low limestone hills, and, occasionally, hills like Duncliffe rise dramatically from the plain. The

Frome valley The River Frome is a river in Dorset in the south of England. At 30 miles (48 km) long it is the major chalkstream in southwest England. It is navigable upstream from Poole Harbour as far as the town of Wareham, Dorset, Wareham. Geography ...

in the north is thinly populated, settlements and parks on the valley sides looking down on arable farmland. In the east along the Vale of Wardour, settlement increases and arable farming is also more prevalent here. The region has 5 Special Areas of Conservation: Rooksmoor; Fontmell & Melbury Downs; Holnest; River Avon; Chilmark Quarries; and Cerne & Sydling Downs. The main watercourses are the rivers Stour, Nadder,

Cale Cale may refer to: People * Cale (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Calé, an endonym used by Romani subgroups in Spain and Portugal Places * Cale, Arkansas, a town in Nevada County, Arkansas, United States ...

, Lydden, Frome,

Brue Brue ( gd, Brù) is a village on the Isle of Lewis in the West Side district, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. It is a crofting township and it is composed of two areas: Am Baile Staigh, which is nearer the coast, and Pàirc Bhrù, which runs to ...

and Wylye.

References

Natural regions of England {{Wiltshire-geo-stub