On heathlands, nature conservation and archaeology go hand in hand. The heaths we know today were probably created c.3,000 yrs ago in the Bronze Age when people cleared areas of trees for building materials and fuel and then subsequently grazed domestic livestock to maintain the newly opened landscape.
Alongside restoring and managing areas for the benefit of our amazing rare wildlife such as Dartford warblers, nightjars, silver-studded blue butterflies and sand lizards, our work is maintaining the settings for the preserved archaeology and in some areas reinstating this ancient landscape.
Stoborough Heath has one of the highest densities of scheduled ancient monuments of any RSPB reserve, with many Bronze Age barrows and other structures surviving. Our aim is to reinstate the archaeological sites (like barrows) in their original landscape context by scrub and tree removal making them visible points in the landscape just like when they were first built.
Google earth has helped local archaeologists from the Poole Harbour Heritage Project discover many trackways on Stoborough Heath near the historic Blue Pool at Wareham. A survey has used photographs from Google Earth and Dorset County Council to reveal a complex of tracks over an area a mile long. The trackways resemble a tree on the air photographs, and consist of around 15 main trackways with smaller shallower sections branching off to other destinations.
Some of the trackways are up to 3m deep and are extensively worn although most are shallower (20-100cm deep). The archaeologists believe the dense gorse has contributed to the find escaping detection for so long. The work has been conducted by retired former Borough of Poole Museum archaeologist Keith Jarvis with assistance from local EDAS archaeologist Alan Hawkins.
This dense gorse, so useful in the past as a fuel source for heating homes and baking bread, is also the main reason why we have Dartford Warblers on our heathlands. The dense bushes act as a larder full of juicy spiders and insects which are vital for the resident insectivorous warblers to survive the winter when snow covers the ground preventing them from finding food.
It is our duty to conserve and further restore these ancient landscapes which have avoided the modern plough or being turned into a housing development site and can now reveal to us a glimpse of what life was like many centuries ago.
If you would like to help restore some of these ancient monuments we are running a series of winter work parties where you will be able to clear the encroaching scrub and reveal the barrow in its historic landscape setting.
Please contact us for work party bookings or for any further information at the Arne reserve office. Email arne@rspb.org.uk or telephone 01929 553360.