Hambledon Hill Drone Aerial Photography of this National Trust Iron Age hill fort in Dorset, England
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Hambledon Hill - Drone Aerial Photography of this Iron Age Hill Fort by
Hambledon Hill is a spectacular Iron Age hill fort located in the Blackmore Vale in Dorset, England. It's about five miles north west of the ancient market town of Blandford Forum.
Set your satnav for the village of Child Okeford, a village on the hill's western side. There is a shop and a pub (The Baker's Arms) there if you need to refresh yourself after your walk.
When I visited it I approached from the lay-by to the north. There is a footpath covered in tree roots leading up to the foot of the ramparts, then a steep climb if you take the direct route to the summit. Otherwise you can skirt along the sides to find gentler slopes.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the site was occupied in Neolithic times. You can imagine it as a place of security and refuge above the wild and riskier places in the valleys below which would have been covered in ancient woodland at the time. With the arrival of the Bronze Age a lot of the woods would have been cleared for farming.
Archaeologist have discovered many finds at the site. They have uncovered the red deer antler picks which would have been used to create the ramparts and other earthworks. They have also dug up human skulls and even a skeleton of a young man with an arrow head embedded in him. Presumably this unfortunate person probably died while attacking or defending the site.
Such hill forts were places of prestige and power in the local area. The presence of two long barrows suggests a place of veneration and remembrance of the ancestors. Who knows what rituals and ceremonies took place on its summit, silhouetted against the night sky.
The fort was a centre of power for Durotriges tribe who ruled over this area in ancient Britain. They built a string of forts that included Hod Hill, Hengistbury Head, and the magnificent Maiden Castle which is just south of Dorchester.
The site was also a meeting point for rebels during the English Civil War.
This hill fort is well worth a visit for the views alone so pick a day with reasonably good visibility. It doesn't need to be the height of summer, just any day when the air is clear. In fact, winter is often better when there is less dust, particularly later in the farming season when the crops are harvested from the fields in the valleys below. You can see for miles from the summit.
You can also walk up from a small car park on the south west side. Look out of the narrow entrance to the lane in Duck Street. It's just next to a pair of cottages.
Three entrances to the hill fort have been identified. The third is on the south east side. Despite its obvious advantages the hill fort was abandoned in favour of another in the vicinity in about 300 BC.
Hambledon Hill is also a nature reserve managed by the National Trust, so if you're a bird watcher or keen on any aspect of the local flora and fauna then this site should be on your itinerary.
Due to its location and the views it's popular with joggers who want to test their stamina on the slopes.
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Hambledon View, Shillingstone
Drone footage from one of our recent photo shoots.
Child Okeford a view from the park
Video recorded with a Parrot Bebop Drone!
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Lesley Slight at the Art Stable, Child Okeford
Bridport painter Lesley Slight at the Art Stable, Child Okeford, North Dorset
Hod Hill Roman Hill Fort Dorset #dorset
Hod Hill National Trust North Dorset.
DJI Phantom RTF V1.1.1
Disclaimer - none of the aerial filming or photography shown within this channel is paid or carried out with the receipt of a financial reward or personal gain.
All my videos are © all rights reserved and are not to be used without my permission.
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Big Massey pulling at 3 Okefords Rally, Shillingstone Dorset.
Hambledon countryside, Hampshire England
This video was uploaded from an Android phone.
River Stour, Dorset
Images relating to the River Stour , Dorset.
Music: an original composition, 'River Stour' by T Mark Rogers.
Images: The opening nine and closing five photographs are by kind permission of Marilyn Peddle - her splendid collection can be viewed at:
Between them are personal photos.
This section of the River Stour is described by John Chaffey in Dorset Life magazine pub. May 2008:
Graceful meanders cut a sinuous trace across the south-eastern corner of the Blackmore Vale before the Stour first encounters the looming barrier of the chalklands of the Dorset Downs...The Stour still has an air of rural tranquility about it, flowing silently through the claylands of the Kimmeridge Clay between Sturminster Newton and Shillingstone...Settlement of farm, hamlet and village eschews the floodplain of the Stour and seeks refuge on the terraces on either side. Thus the villages of this stretch of the Stour, arranged in pairs, Shillingstone and Child Okeford, Durweston and Stourpaine, sit well back from the risk of flood on the water meadows near the river. It is only where the Stour can provide power, as at Fiddleford, and further downstream at Durweston, that mills are close to the river.
At Sturminster Newton the Stour bids farewell to the Oxford Clay pastures of the Blackmore Vale and cuts through the Corallian ridge, with its stiffening bands of Todber Freestone and Sturminster Oolite. The town, in the words of Treves, 'is meately placed, for a gracious river winds round about it, its water-meadows are forever green, while behind it rise the bare heights of the Dorset hills from Hambledon to Bulbarrow'.
Sturminster Newton is rich in literary connections: William Barnes, born in nearby Bagber, worked as a solicitor's clerk in the town until he was seventeen; Thomas Hardy rented Riverside Villas in 1876-1878, and during that time wrote 'The Return of the Native', dreaming no doubt of far distant Egdon Heath. Here Hardy also wrote 'Overlooking the River Stour', and immortalised the bird life for all time with:
Planing up shavings of crystal spray
A moor-hen darted out
From the bank thereabout,
And through the stream-shine ripped his way...
'A Two-years' Idyll' also slipped from his pen, recording some of the happiest times with his wife, Emma, at Riverside Villas.
Crop Circle 2014 Hod Hill Nr Hanford Dorset #cropcircles
Hanford Child Okeford North Dorset.
My first capture of a Crop Circle, on my door step!
DJI Phantom RTF V1.1.1 Crop Circle North Dorset.
Disclaimer - none of the aerial filming or photography shown within this channel is paid or carried out with the receipt of a financial reward or personal gain.
All my videos are © all rights reserved and are not to be used without my permission.
Blackmore Vale, Dorset
Views of Blackmore Vale
Music: an original composition, 'Complect Clouds' by T Mark Rogers.
Images: The first opening four and closing five photographs are by kind permission of Marilyn Peddle - her splendid collection of Blackmore Vale photos can be viewed at:
Between them are B&W photos from the 1920s and 1930s of Hill Farm, Woolland.
The pastoral expanse of the Blackmore Vale can be viewed wonderfully from its southern boundary ridge of chalk hills: Woolland, Bulbarrow, Belchalwell, Okeford; across the Stour valley from the eastern hill fort of Hambledon; and from the NE escarpment of Fontmell Down to Melbury Beacon and Shaftesbury.
For many of us who were born and brought up in the heart of the Blackmore Vale it felt very much as the famous Dorset poet, William Barnes, writes in his poem Childhood:
...Our world did end with the names,
Of Shaftesbury Hill or Bulbarrow ...
Nestling at the foot of Bulbarrow, is Hill Farm, Woolland, where my maternal grandparents ran a dairy (one of Thomas Hardy's 'little dairies') producing lovely full cream cheese for sale to grocers and at the market in Sturminster Newton and where they brought up their four children: Ralph, Gwyn, Pam and Victor White. The B&W photos show Hill Farm, Gwyn (my mother) and her sister Pam; and two of Gypsy families who frequently camped on the farmland on Bulbarrow, with whom the Whites held mutual respect and friendship.
Thomas Hardy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, describes beautifully the tranquil view over Blackmore Vale:
'Here in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere below is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes of that hue, whilst the horizon beyond is of deepest ultramarine.'
Okeford Hill Beacon lighting
Diamond Jubilee beacon lighting.
Okeford Fitzpaine - Little Lane (ORPA, E-W)
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NGR Start: ST821120
NGR Finish: ST811110
Road Number: D31922
Date: 16.02.13
Condition: Semi-paved dirt track.
Notes: None.
OS X (Eastings) 381119
OS Y (Northings) 110962
Nearest Post Code DT11 0RB
Lat (WGS84) N50:53:52 (50.897824)
Long (WGS84) W2:16:11 (-2.269850)
Lat,Long 50.897824,-2.269850
Nat Grid ST811109 / ST8111910962
mX -252678
mY 6570060
Mapcode GBR 0XF.NXT
what3words congested.stuck.armed
Okeford Fitzpaine, Shaftesbury and Milton Abbas March 6th 2011
A lovely tour of three Dorset villages.
Child Okeford Church By Mike Semple
Child Okeford
Shillingstone steam rally
I would like to thank greyham for letting me have a ride in his classic seddon lorry and paul for letting me steer his steam engine out of the arena I would also like to thank aidan strand for being there with me an witnessing everything as well as Joe rawlings (miniature steam guy) for being there too as well as filming some parts for me
Okeford Fitzpaine Little Lane 16 02 2013
S - ST 8211811981
F - ST 8115710957
1.43km
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longleat horse trials 2010
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