Blackmore Vale

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Photoblog: 27 Aug 2006

The view from wood lane in Stalbridge, looking NNE towards Shaftesbury. I loved the late summer evening light and shadow accross the landscape, and that cloud was quite unique.

This is the Blackmore Vale, the valley of the River Stour. For a time, Thomas Hardy lived five miles south east of here, at Sturminster Newton, and he based the Wessexian "Vale of the Little Dairies" on this area, and until recently it boasted the largest cattle market in the country. The nearest / most prominent hill is Duncliffe, with Cranborne Chase behind. The clay vale is the dividing line between the Devonian sandstones of the west, and the southern English chalk formation of Cranborne Chase, Salisbury Plain, the Isle of Wight and the South & North Downs.