Places to visit

Earthworks

Rural Dorset has much to offer those interested in archaeology or history, with a landscape that shows traces of human occupation since the Iron Age. Ackling Dyke or Icknield Street, is one of the most spectacular Roman Roads in Britain, it runs for 25 miles from Old Sarum to Badbury Rings and you may still walk along the route, in the footsteps of the Centurions!

Bokerly Dyke is of Romano-British origin dating from the 4th Century, its purpose is unclear but it may have served as a barrier to keep the Saxons out of Dorset. Today it is visible as a bank running for a distance of 4 miles along the present Dorset-Hampshire border.

The Dorset Cursus is one of the County’s most famous prehistoric monuments. It runs from Bokerly Dyke to Thickthorn Down, crossing Ackling Dyke at Old Sarum. To the north of Pentridge it appears as 2 parallel banks stretching for 6 miles, 4 miles of which are well preserved and make a delightful walk across the Chase. Both banks are flanked with barrows suggesting it may have been a ceremonial route to a more important long barrow.



Knowlton Rings was constructed in the Bronze Age as a religious site, as the large number of barrows in the area and the proximity of yew trees indicate. The church in the centre was built to destroy the religious power of the rings (a symbol of the power of Christianity over Paganism). A plague in 1348 killed the residents of the nearby village, the church fell into disuse and finally into ruin in the 18th Century.