The County of Dorsetshire     OS Map Grid Ref: ST721015

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Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth are administratively outside the county of Dorset.

The ice sheets of the last ice age were not as extensive as those of previous glaciations which reached as far south as the Severn estuary and the Thames valley, missing the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon and the other southernmost counties of England completely. Where the British Isles were not under the ice, they were very much like the Arctic tundra of today; the summer sun would have thawed only the top few inches of soils and rocks which would have been permanently frozen for many metres. The soils and rocks which are porous would have been rendered impermiable to water and any rainfall would have quickly saturated the thin thawed later and created runoff.

Dorset was part of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex and successfully resisted the Danes. It suffered considerably after the Norman conquest but, thereafter, made little impact on the national history.

The county possesses a number of fine churches including Milton Abbey and Wimborne Minster, interesting ruins in Corfe Castle and Sherborne and several medieval remains in the heart of Christchurch.