The Vale of Wardour encompasses the valley of the River Nadder in the county of

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Geography

Topography

The Vale of Wardour lies east of the town of Shaftesbury and is a relatively small but varied landscape. Named after the village of Wardour, its main river is the Nadder which flows from west to east through the vale. In the west the Nadder is fed by its main tributary, the Sem; in the east the valley ends around Wilton where the Nadder is joined by the Wylye. The largest village in the vale is Tisbury.''NCA Profile:133 Blackmore Vale and Vale of Wardour (NE539)''
at publications.naturalengland.org.uk. Retrieved 25 Feb 2018.

Natural region

The vale is a western tongue of National Character Area 133: Blackmore Vale and Vale of Wardour, designated by Natural England. To the north is number 132,

Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...

and

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 ...

, and to the south is number 134,

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

Cranborne Chase Cranborne Chase () is an area of central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. It is part of the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The area is dominated by, ...

. The area extends west almost as far as Barford St Martin, where the Nadder valley narrows.

Geology

Geologically the Vale of Wardour is complex. The Nadder flows through a clay valley surrounded by hills of Purbeck, Portland, and Lower and Upper Greensand.The

Gault The Gault Formation is a geological formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep-water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period (Upper and Middle Albian). It is well exposed in the coastal cliffs at Copt Point in Fol ...

, thickness up to 27.5 m (90 ft.), is also present in the Vale, notable are the numerous phosphatic nodules it contains. The Hampshire Basin and Adjoining Areas, 3rd edition,C.P Chatwin HMSO 1960. page 50.

Sights

* Ancient hillforts: Castle Rings and

Castle Ditches Castle Ditches is the site of an Iron Age trivallate hillfort in the southeast of Tisbury parish in Wiltshire, England. It is probable that its ancient name was ''Spelsbury''; it was referred to as ''Willburge'' in Tisbury's charter of 984 A.D ...

* Fovant Badges *

Old Wardour Castle Wardour Castle is a ruined 14th-century castle at Wardour, on the boundaries of the civil parishes of Tisbury and Donhead St Andrew in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Salisbury. The castle was built in the 1390s, came into the ...

Philipps House Philipps House (until 1916 Dinton House) is an early nineteenth-century Neo-Grecian country house at Dinton, overlooking the Nadder valley about west of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. The house was built in 1816 by William Wyndham to the de ...

References

Valleys of Wiltshire {{Wiltshire-geo-stub