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981 km² (379 square miles) of Cranborne Chase and the West Wiltshire Downs is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), the sixth largest AONB in the country. The highest point is Win Green , in Wiltshire, at 910 ft.
The downlandA downland is an area of open chalk upland. This term is especially used to describe the chalk countryside in southern England. Often referred to as downs. Downland is usually formed where bands of chalk reach the surface at an angle. As they are slowly e has a long history with many earthworks and archaeologyArchaeology or archeology ( American English) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. The goal of archaeology is to sh from the NeolithicThe Neolithic (Greek neos new, lithos stone, or "New Stone Age") is traditionally the last part of the stone age. The name was invented by John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. It followed Pleistocene Epipalaeolithic and early Holo onwards. Some of the dense woodland covering the downs was probabaly cleared in the iron age, but much of the area remained wooded until World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough. There are a number of iron age settlements on the downs, most notably the hill fortThe term hill fort is commonly used by archeologists to describe the fortified enclosures, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. This fortification consists of one or more circular or sub-circular earth or stone ramparts, often w at Badbury RingsBadbury Rings is an iron age hill fort in east Dorset, England, dating from 800 BCE and in use until the Roman occupation of 43 CE. The 330 ft high, 7 hectare fort is encircled by three 40ft ramparts and four Bronze Age round barrows indicating an earlier. During the Saxon invasion of England the Romano-British kept the invaders out of Dorset by building Bokerley Dyke, a defensive ditch, across the Roman Road that runs across the downs from Dorchester to Old Sarum.
The downs have been sparsely populated since Saxon times, preserving archaeology until World War II when the need for agricultural land outweighed the archaeological importance. It was here that Augustus Pitt Rivers developed modern archaeological field work in the 19th century.
The downs are named after the village Cranborne, founded by the Saxons, which had a manor house and a small monastery. The word "chase" comes from the hunts, frequented by royalty (including Kings John, Henry VIII and James I), which took place on the downs. The Chase was owned by the Earl of Gloucester until it passed to King John by his marriage to Gloucester's daughter, Avisa. The land remained in the hands of the Angevin Kings until James I granted the rights to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury.
Much of the Chase is still owned by large estates such as Kingston Lacy