LONGLEAT is spearheading an international breeding and awareness-building programme for Australia’s iconic and increasingly threatened koala. Later this year the Wiltshire estate, which opened the world’s first drive-through safari outside Africa in 1966, will receive a group of up to six southern koalas from Cleland Wildlife Park in Adelaide. After spending time in quarantine the…
THREE South Somerset market towns will benefit from a new grants programme launched by South Somerset District Council this September. The aim of the grants is to increase the number of visitors to Chard, Crewkerne and Ilminster. Not for profit groups and organisations based in the three towns are invited to apply for grants to…
CHILDREN from a south Dorset primary school have helped to develop a new interactive walking trail to attract people of all ages to explore the magnificent sights of the South Dorset Ridgeway. Hosted by Bincombe Valley Primary School, and led by Dorset Youth Association with the support of Artsreach and the social and ethical house…
A FORMER United Reformed Church chapel at Avebury has been purchased by the National Trust as a space to highlight conservation work and explain the special landscapes within the World Heritage Site. Jan Tomlin, the trust’s general manager for the Wiltshire Landscape, explains: “Our vision is to develop this unique and beautiful building into a…
FINGERPOSTS are a common feature of the Dorset countryside – and their design is thought to be unique, according to the South Dorset Ridgeway Landscape Partnership which has a project to refurbish these special signs. The fingerposts contribute to the character of the area but their numbers have fallen in recent years and many are in…
TRANSPORT Secretary Chris Grayling has announced that a tunnel is to be built to take the A303 past Stonehenge, to help to reduce the notorious traffic bottleneck on one of the major routes to the West Country. The tunnel would be 1.8 miles long, and would form part of a £2 billion programme for road…
AS the concert audience left the abbey, a woman’s voice was heard saying to a group of friends: “Come on back and have some scrambled eggs in the kitchen with Anthony and me.” And the Lord-Lieutenant of Dorset and her husband Anthony Pitt-Rivers got into their car and drove off towards their home at Hinton…