G.Knowles's video: Chewton Bunny Nature Reserve June 2020 Highcliffe Christchurch Dorset 1

Chewton Bunny Nature Reserve is an ancient wooded river valley which forms the county boundary between Dorset and Hampshire. The Walkford Brook flows through the site, entering a culvert and eventually flowing out to sea. A chine is a steep-sided river valley where the river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding coastal cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word chine originates from the Saxon Cinan meaning a gap or yawn. The word is in still use in central Southern England; in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight to describe such topographical features. However, bunny is also used to describe a chine in Hampshire, Chewton Bunny is designated as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest and is rich in woodland wildlife, including a number of Ancient Natural Woodland Indicator species. The mill house in the centre of the site previously used a waterwheel in the Brook to mill grain and the cover given by the site made it a convenient smuggling route for contraband in the past. At the north end of the site the Brook also passes under the first ever reinforced concrete bridge. Highcliffe lies close to the historic town of Christchurch, the resort town of Bournemouth, and the New Forest National Park. Highcliffe's position on the middle of England's south coast gives it a climate with milder winters than inland areas and less rainfall than locations further west. This helped establish the town as a popular health and leisure resort during the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras. What is now regarded as Highcliffe has developed over the last several hundred years from the hamlet of Slop Pond, the Chewton Estate, and Chewton Common. The latter two also contained large farmsteads. Slop Pond was a collection of thatched cottages, named from the large pond on its common. The cottages were occupied by farm workers and fishermen, who engaged in the smuggling and poaching trade now notorious in local history. When the area became a more popular tourist destination in the Victorian era, Slop Pond was renamed Newtown. It was later then changed to Highcliff, after the first High Cliff house, and soon became known as Highcliffe on Sea.