Tour of Down Farm and the Dorset Cursus

Tour of Down Farm and the Dorset Cursus

Tour leader and host: Martin Green

For anyone who has not yet visited Down Farm near to Sixpenny Handley on Cranborne Chase, this opportunity is a must. For anyone who has already done so, there are always new things to see and to learn.

Martin Green (our guide) is the author of A Landscape Revealed: 10,000 Years on a Chalkland Farm (2000) published by Tempus. Martin is a farmer turned professional archaeologist, a wildlife enthusiast and a collector and curator of a fantastic prehistoric museum based at Down Farm. Here the finds from decades of archaeological excavation are well-exhibited and are clearly explained.

Every visit to Down Farm is a unique blend of landscape history, archaeology, wildlife and conservation interest. However, major points of archaeological interest are the Fir Tree Field Shaft (this provides is a rare record of the transition from hunter-gatherers to settled agriculture on the chalklands), the Neolithic Dorser Cursus (an enigmatic monument that was probably a processional way and burial monuments dating from the Neolithic, and various funerary monuments dating to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages.

We are limited to 20 visitors. Car sharing is encouraged. Down Farm is accessed by turning left off the A354 between Salisbury and Blandford Forum on the road to Wimborne St Giles, then turn right after 150m and the Farm is 700m along this track.

Meet: Down Farm   1:45. Postcode: SP5 5RY  Grid reference: SU 000149

Start time: 2.00pm

Duration:  Walk will be approximately one hour followed by time at the museum

Tickets: £12.50. Bookings through Eventbrite Down Farm and Dorset Cursus