Durlston Castle and Globe, Swanage, Dorset |
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Durlston Country Park is a 1.13 square kilometre (280-acre) country park and nature reserve stretching along the coast of the Isle of Purbeck near Swanage in Dorset, England. The Park, is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.
Durlston forms part of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Purbeck Heritage Coast.
The underlying rock is limestone so the majority of the park is calcareous grassland, probably created about 1000 years ago by clearing of oak forest, hosting a range of wild flower species and associated animals such as butterflies.
In the 19th and 20th centuries Purbeck was quarried for its high-quality limestone. There were few open-cast quarries, and none in Durlston, but there are many mine shafts across the landscape, notably Tilly Whim Caves in a dry glacial meltwater valley.
In 1887 George Burt built a small castle at Durlston Head on the hill above Swanage, to be used as a restaurant for his Durlston estate. Burt also commissioned a 40-ton limestone Globe, three metres in diameter, engraved with an 1880s world map. The footpaths around the Castle and Globe are lined with cast iron London bollards which were left in Swanage having been used as ballast by the ships transporting stone to London. |
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