The Isle
A large part of the district is now designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), but a portion of the coast around Worbarrow Bay and the ghost village of Tyneham is still, after nearly 60 years, in the possession of the Ministry of Defence who use it as a training area. Lulworth Military Range is part of the Armoured Fighting Vehicles Gunnery School. Tanks and other Armoured vehicles are used in this area and shells are fired. Due to safety reasons, right of entry is only given when the army ranges are not in operation. Large red flags are flown and flashing warning lamps on Bindon Hill and St Alban's Head are lit when the range is in Military use. At such times the entrance gates are locked and wardens patrol the area.
Other places of note are:
- Swanage, at the eastern end of the peninsula, is a seaside resort. At one time it was linked by a branch railway line from Wareham; this was closed in 1972, but has now reopened as the Swanage Railway, a heritage railway.
- Studland: This is a seaside village in its own sandy bay. Nearby, lying off-shore from The Foreland (also Handfast Point), are the chalk stacks named Old Harry Rocks: Old Harry and his Wife.
- Poole Harbour is popular with yachtsmen; it contains Brownsea Island, the site of the first-ever Scout camp.
- Corfe Castle is in the centre of the Isle, with its picturesque village named after it.
- Langton Matravers, which was once the home of several boys preparatory schools until 2007 when The Old Malthouse closed.
- Kimmeridge Bay, with its fossil-rich Jurassic shale cliffs, and site of the oldest continually working oil well in the world.
Read more about this topic: Isle Of Purbeck
Famous quotes containing the word isle:
“It is so rare to meet with a man outdoors who cherishes a worthy thought in his mind, which is independent of the labor of his hands. Behind every man’s busy-ness there should be a level of undisturbed serenity and industry, as within the reef encircling a coral isle there is always an expanse of still water, where the depositions are going on which will finally raise it above the surface.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)