East Dorset Landscape Character Assessment - Dorsetforyou.com

Area of Outstanding Beauty (AONB) prepared by Land Use Consultantsto reflect current methodology and guidance to facilitate the preparationof the AONB Management Plan.5. Methodology of Landscape CharacterAssessmentThe process of mapping and describing landscape character hasfollowed the ‘Landscape Character Assessment: Guidance for Englandand Scotland’ (Countryside Agency, 2002). Consultants DiaconoAssociates carried out a study to identify and map LandscapeDescription Units (LDUs), the ‘building blocks’ of the landscape. The keysteps of this process leading to the definition of the Landscape CharacterAreas are laid out in Appendix 1.The study has identified 9 landscape character types and 25 landscapecharacter areas within East Dorset. The relationship between the JointCharacter Areas, character types and character areas is set out in thefollowing table. Each landscape character area is fully described inChapter 6.In the characterisation study ‘LANDSCAPE CHARACTER TYPES’are landscapes with broadly similar patterns of geology, soils, vegetation,land use, settlement and field patterns. Landscapes belonging to aparticular type - for example “Open Rolling Heath” - may be found inmany different places.‘LANDSCAPE CHARACTER AREAS’ are unique areas, geographicallydiscrete examples of a particular landscape type. For example ‘HoltHeath’ is a character area belonging to the ‘Open Rolling Heath” type.Joint Character Area Landscape Character Type Landscape Character AreaDorset Downs &Cranborne ChaseWooded Chalk PlateauChalk DownlandChalk River ValleyChase WoodsEast Dorset Downs/SouthBlandford/Bloxworth DownsMonkton Up Wimborne ValleyGussage ValleyCrichel ValleyAllen ValleyLower Winterborne ValleyLowland river valley Lower Stour Valley (part)River terraceSturminster MarshallDorset Heaths Rolling Farmland/woodland Woodlands-Colehill & Hillbuttsfarmland/woodlandHenbury - Corfe, Morden-Lytchett farmland/woodlandLowland river valleyLower Stour Valley (part)Moors River ValleyRiver Terrace Merley Ridge -Canford RiverTerraceHampreston River TerraceParley River TerraceDewlands-Rushmoor RiverTerraceHeath/farmland mosaicForest Heath mosaicOpen Rolling HeathHorton Common-Three LeggedCrossDudsbury RidgeRingwood-Hurn Forest/HeathMosaicWest MoorsFerndown Forest-StapehillHolt HeathUpton HeathWest Parley HeathNew Forest Lowland river valley Lower Avon ValleyEast Dorset District Council District Landscape Character Assessment 20086