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It's here, the first edition of Tales from the Chase!

14 August 2025

Welcome to issue 1 of Tales from the Chase, a weekly newsletter for Cranborne Chase. Local events. Odd tales. Mildly strange goings-on. All delivered by email, free, and occasionally unhinged (in a charming way).

Hello and welcome! The big news is: this is the very first edition of Tales from the Chase — the finest and most fiercely beloved newsletter in all of Cranborne Chase. (A totally unbiased claim, obviously.)

We’re very excited to be here! Well, I am. Hubert is less “excited” and more… mildly less disappointed than usual. That’s practically a standing ovation, by his standards.

You can catch his content, Hubert's Guide, in the "Where's that then" section below, and also don't forget to check out Hubert's Hall of Fame and Infamy.

Hubert is a long-time local resident, and has thoughts about the Chase, and about your village or town. Not many of them are kind. You may or may not agree with him. My advice; dont be offended, you'll only encourage him.

But what do we really know about Hubert?

Rarely seen in public, he’s like Banksy, with less art but more misery. He came, he saw, he left in a bad mood; and then wrote publicly about it.

Some say he’s a grumpy old man who was gifted the role of “grim emissary of sarcasm” in his grandfather’s will and works hard to honour the responsibility. Some say he’s a curmudgeonly old misanthrope who once heard guacamole described as "life changing" and never got over the disappointment. Some say he’s just not impressed. All we know is, he’s Hubert. And he has a soft spot for handwritten notes and the works of Thomas Hardy.

Featured this week:

• some great events lined up over the next seven days, see what's catching our eye below
• the how, why and when of a bunch of folk from Chilmark dragging a huge rock all the way to Salisbury
• Alvediston, the first entry in an A-Z journey around the Chase, given the full Hubert treatment
• the first ever Hall of Fame and Infamy; take a look, get the gist of how it works, and submit your own entries for the next issue
• a range of other quirks, curios, and charmingly strange goings-on.

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Every day until 27 August

• International Garden Photographer of the Year is touring to Stourhead, for the very first time in 2025! An exciting and prestigious exhibition with a selection of amazing award-winning images from across the world, displayed outdoors and in large format. Click here for details.​

Every day until 31 August

• Longleat Summer Carnival. Swing by for adventure, wildlife and thrills at the funfair! Reach new heights with on the helter-skelter and swing boats and enjoy the whimsy of the classic carousel, all included in the cost of your day ticket. summer-carnival​

Every day until 2 September

• Stourhead Summer of Play is back! Endless fun every day at the Stableyard and the Summer of Play Meadow. Straw castle, archery range, meadow maze. Just at weekends, expert circus performers from BigTopMania and friends will share their skills. Or get crafty with Wiltshire Scrapstore every Friday to Sunday. Click here for details.​

Every day until 7 September

• Kingston Lacy Summer of Play. Head to the Kitchen Garden to join the fun. Play with giant building blocks, relax in the story garden, put on a performance at the puppet theatre and discover lots more games and activities. There are also two wonderful play areas to discover and explore, one in the Kitchen Garden and one on the Woodland Walk. Click here for details.​

14 August 2025

• Nature adventures at Kingston Lacy. Join the Kingston Lacy Ranger team for Nature Adventures. Discover the farm and its animals, learn about healthy eating at the Kitchen Garden, enjoy archery and uncover the past on an archaeology adventure. Click here for details.​

14 - 17 August 2025

• We Out Here Festival. An award-winning family-friendly festival at Wimborne St Giles. Curated by BBC Radio 6's Gilles Peterson, it platforms the best in jazz, soul, dub, electronic, hip hop and more, alongside many activities. Day tickets available.https://weoutherefestival.com/​

15 August 2025

• Dorset Scrapstore craft and make at Kingston Lacy Summer of Play. Pop into our craft session and create something wonderful. Each make is inspired by nature, history, performing and summer. Click here for details​

16 August 2025

• Chalke Valley Fete on Saturday 16 August 2025 (1 pm–4 pm) at the Broad Chalke sports field. This classic village fete includes a produce show, stalls, entertainment, tea & cakes, BBQ and beer tent, children’s activities, and community fundraising. Entry and parking are free. Volunteers and plant contributions welcome.
• The Tarrant Gunville Horse Show and Gymkhana. Lots for everyone: various show classes including a Comic Dog Show, Dog Races, Stalls, Raffle, Bar and much much more! Eastbury Park, Tarrant Gunville, Nr Blandford, Dorset DT11 8JQ. Click here for map and directions. Admission: All cars £7 per car, all Horse Boxes and towing Horse Trailers free, on foot free.

Newsflash: 70's punk rocker reincarnated as sheep

A sheep above Monk's Hole, Ebbesbourne Wake. Possibly possessed by the spirit of a deceased Salford Jets fan. It's all about the attitude, not the looks.

Looking back isn’t just about nostalgia and academic inquiry. The past was an interesting place, maybe more so than you might think. In Chasing the Past we're curious about the history of the Chase, and sometimes unearth bits that you may not have heard about. And sometimes we find the weird, the wild, and the quietly wonderful.

We’re starting things off with a charming tale of hauling a giant rock from Chilmark to Salisbury in the early 1980s, told by Paul Howells (once of Fovant, now of San Antonio, Texas) who actually helped with the heavy lifting. Because who better to narrate a story about dragging a rock than one of those who had to drag the damn thing? Over to you Paul.

Rock and roll; what a drag by Paul Howells

Back in the early 1980s my father was Commanding Officer of RAF Chilmark, which was at the time an armament depot (bomb and ammunition store). I knew he was CO as he had a little flag on the bonnet of his Airforce car: as seen in WWII war movies.

The bombs were kept underground in an ancient quarry where Chilmark stone was mined for over a thousand years (according to Heritage Gateway). Chilmark stone is a fine-grained Jurassic limestone, most famous for its use in building Salisbury Cathedral in the 13th century. Although it's hardy, it weathers over hundreds of years and by the 1980s the Cathedral was in need of some significant restoration.

My Dad remembers the Cathedral approaching the RAF to reopen the quarry to allow the extraction of rock that would match. I believe the Cathedral had considered using a similar rock from Caen, France, but had rejected it as it was the wrong shade.

The munitions camp was still in use at this time, so the smaller quarry which was part of the camp's headquarters was reopened instead (so as not to disturb the bombs). As part of a PR fundraiser in 1981 the first stone was to be manhandled from Chilmark to Salisbury to recreate the original 13th century journey of twelve or so miles to the Cathedral site.

In our case we used a wheeled flatbed roughly 7 feet by 4 feet on which was placed a large rock found in situ at the quarry. The volunteers, mostly air force personnel and family, me included, pushed and pulled the rock to the Cathedral.

We caused some minor traffic chaos, though we wisely avoided the major roads where possible, sticking to quieter routes south of the Rivers Nadder and Avon, definitely dodging the A36. The route was relatively flat but twelve miles is a long way to roll a rock.

On arrival at the Cathedral we were greeted by the stonemasons and it emerged that the rock we had dragged was actually unusable. As was commonplace at the time, when the quarry was closed the medieval stonemasons cut a block and left it in the yard to give the appearance of continued activity. Superstitions being what they were, they figured if the quarry looked abandoned, the local demons and fairies might throw a tantrum.

This is the rock we had hauled. It had seen better centuries, and was now very weathered and getting crumbly at the edges. Well at least the fairies had been kept happy as the centuries passed.

Not to let the effort go to waste, the stonemasons cleverly turned the best bits of the rock into fundraising souvenirs, as shown in the pictures below (found on my Dad’s mantlepiece (the pictures show the front and the back views).

The RAF closed Chilmark in 1995. The quarry is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) due to bat colonies. The disused nuclear bunker also had a brief illegal stint as an extensive cannabis farm until raided by the Wiltshire Police. Should have stuck to mushrooms.

References:

Journal of the Bath Geological Society, No. 31, 2012

https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/

Cranborne Chase. Where every hedge may hide a secret, every footpath could lead to an unexpected mystery, and no one can explain the smell coming from Gerald’s barn. Here we report briefly on a few of the more unusual rumours that have come our way this week:

A man in Ashmore has allegedly taught his ducks to respond to Latin commands. "Cantate!” triggers a quacking performance of the operatic bit from Bohemian Rhapsody.

A pair of trail runners claim to have been outpaced near Tollard Royal by a 'mysterious figure in tweed' who vanished behind a hedge. Main suspect is a retired gamekeeper.

A Fontmell Magna resident has started attending parish council meetings purely to take notes for her memoir: Behind the Biscuits: Power and Politics in a Village Hall.

Someone in Teffont Evias claims to dry their laundry exclusively by moonlight 'for energetic alignment.'

A Chalke Valley farmer claims he’s trained his sheep to vote with hoof taps. Apparently the flock has expressed a strong preference for Taylor Swift over Sabrina Carpenter.

You sometimes hear some odd things when you're out and about in the Chase, in the pub, out on the paths, in the queue at the villlage shop. Here are some of the more interesting snippets of conversation that caught our ear this week.

"She’s convinced the full moon interferes with the broadband. And the dog.”

“The cows are looking at me like I borrowed something and didn’t give it back.”

“I’m not suspicious, I’m local.”

“The owls argue in Welsh. I don’t care what you say, I’ve heard them.”

“They call it an ‘off-grid lifestyle’. I call it forgetting to pay the bill again.”

"We all take turns being eccentric. Last week was the goat's turn. It wore a beret. No one batted an eyelid."

Sometimes when you're walking in the Chase, out on the hiils or in the woods, you might feel that the landscape is trying to tell you something. Walking in the countryside helps to clear the clutter in your mind and somehow lets your subconscious sort the mess of your thoughts. Ideas pop up, answers appear, inspiration strikes.

Sometimes maybe its not working and you feel you need a sign. Sometimes you actually get a sign. Jeanette from Maiden Bradley came across this when wrestling with a tricky life choice (see picture below):

"There was a wooden sign that read, ‘You already know’. I stopped and stared at it for ten minutes. Then I realised yes, it's right, I knew the answer already! Choice made. I went home feeling a weight had been lifted. Funny thing, I went back the next day and ... no sign."

Jeanette, deeply unsettled and yet thrilled.

A parish by parish tour of the Chase

And so it begins. Our parish-by-parish pilgrimage through the Chase’s 108 parishes. Alphabetical order, of course; Hubert's in charge and he likes methodical.

First of all, the letter A: and the idyllic spot that is Alvediston.

Alvediston

Ah, Alvediston; a tranquil village nestled in Wiltshire's Chalke Valley, with just over a hundred residents in a picturesque scatter of houses.

The parish stretches onto the chalk ridges to north and south, where bronze age remains and a dew pond (ancient Wermere) can be found. It’s layered with a long history, from ancient earthworks to prime‑ministerial memoirs.

Hubert's guide is below. He left it as a handwritten note tucked into the pages of an old copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. This was sealed in a plastic lunch box. This was stuffed in a cleft in the roots of a beech tree next to a track up onto the downs from the Chalke Valley. Having extracted the note, I replaced the book and the box for next time. One day I’ll get him to use email, but one step at a time, eh?

One strange thing, on removing the note, I saw this sentence underlined on page 216 of the book (Penguin Classics, 1985 reprint):

"After that , the blackness of unutterable night".

I do hope Hubert's OK... Anyway, here's his guide. All views expressed are Hubert's own, and not necessarily shared by Tales from the Chase. Although reading between the lines I think he's actually quite fond of Alvediston.

ALVEDISTON

A village where yesterday lingers and tomorrow's late

Located in the bottom left corner of Wiltshire, it is said that Alvediston is a place where someone pressed “pause” centuries ago then forgot where the start button was.

Notable for: Death. Specifically, a Prime Minister’s

Home (and grave) of Anthony Eden, Britain’s famously stylish and diplomatically challenged Prime Minister during the 1956 Suez Crisis, after which he retired to Alvediston with his cattle. His grave lies in the churchyard at St Mary's, a place so relentlessly calm I think it would feel deeply offended by the concept of excitement.

Village Features

The Crown. Formerly a pub, now a fire-damaged ruin. I was in there once in the early 2000s when Madonna and Guy Ritchie showed up for a pint, back when she was still pretending to enjoy British culture. In other news, the place caught fire (for the second time) a couple of years ago. Repairs still underway. Odds of it reopening as a pub? Somewhere between slim and “when Madonna marries a chimney sweep.”

A post box, from the era of King George VI. Some say it’s haunted. Others say its not. I'm with the others. What would haunt a postbox; a tiny poltergeist that swaps addresses? A spectral voice insisting you use the right stamp, like a ghost of bureaucracy past?

The River Ebble runs through it. Imagine a river, now remove most of the water, ambition, and majesty. What’s left is this moist suggestion of a stream. Sometimes it's not there at all (like now). Some say "seasonal flows" or "low water table", others cite climate change. I say maybe it just can't be bothered to turn up every day, and who can blame it.

St Mary’s Church, cobbled together with bits dating anywhere from the 12th to the 19th century. Outside there’s the Eden grave, and other tombs with illegible inscriptions. Inside, various monuments including a medieval carving of a knight resting his feet on what is probably a dog. Or a very supportive gremlin.

Other information:

An ancient house west of the village (Norrington) was founded, according to someone with a vivid imagination, by a family descended from Sir Gawain. Yes, he who once beheaded a bloke for fun and then spent a year dreading the return favour. Anyway, the house is not open to the public, so lets all just take their word for it and move on with our lives. Fun fact; Gawain's imagined descendant may be the knight with the dog in the church; which is, frankly, a lot of pressure for a guy just trying to have a quiet lie down.

Eden’s ghost is said to whisper foreign policy regrets in the lanes on foggy nights. No one listens. No one cares. No one really thinks this.

Supposedly, there are some ancient mounds and a charming little dewpond up in the hills. Fascinating, I'm sure. I didn't drag myself up there. If you're that desperate to commune with lumps of dirt and puddles, be my guest.

Summary: Alvediston is like the soft whisper at the end of a pastoral poem, when you fall asleep, spill your tea, and wake up with a start. It's the answer to the question ‘What if nothing exciting ever happened; and that was fine.’

Hubert's suggested Itinerary

1. Arrive

2. Stand in the middle of the lane until something (a dog, a cloud, despair) acknowledges you

3. Visit the grave of a Prime Minister and consider the futility of empire

4. Wander in the churchyard for 15 minutes trying to find a signal

5. Leave.

NEXT WEEK: ANSTY

Prepare to be utterly underwhelmed.

Further reading: Hubert’s take on Alvediston is (we hope) entertaining, but if you’re after something better researched, more in depth, and with a bibliography, seek out Alvediston: A History by local author Biddy Trahair. You’ll find a copy (for reference only) in the church, quietly waiting with several copies of Eden’s memoirs (really).

The Crown. Hubert seems pessimistic about the future of the Crown as a pub (well he's just pessimistic generally really) but I wonder if any locals in Alvediston know what the plans are for it? If so do hit reply and let me know. It's not my local but it's an old favourite with many good memories over many years.

Welcome to the only part of the newsletter where people may be publicly praised, gently mocked, or allowed to bang on about their minor triumphs as if they’ve cured scurvy.

We are currently accepting:
• Overstated achievements​
• Thinly veiled complaints​
• Reports of others behaving impressively or idiotically (we like these best)

Entries must be short (up to 50 words), at least vaguely true, and preferably entertaining. Submit them here.

By way of a starter, to give you the gist, here’s some examples we made up earlier. Note: most of these are not true: just to give you an idea of what we'd like. If possible.

A challenge: if you can correctly spot the one example that is true, hit reply with your theory and I'll give you a mention in the next issue. That's a big deal.

sporting

"My daughter Amy entered the local 10k fun run. Ran 2k, walked 4k, cried 1k, then accepted a lift. Still got a medal. It was chocolate. She ate it."​
Sophie, proud parent, Coombe Bisset.

Hubert replies:​
An inspiration to precisely no one.

birthday

"My brother John celebrated turning 30 last week by injuring his back sneezing and spending the evening comparing air fryers online. Party hard, John."​
Ryan, Dinton

Hubert replies:​
John, welcome to your prime.

"Happy birthday to my nephew Olly who turned 9 last week and told the clown at his party he believed in ‘the void more than joy’. Please send help."​
Auntie Meg, now deeply unsettled, Sixpenny Handley

Hubert replies:​
Existential dread before reaching double digits? Promising. The arts await him.

graduation

Recent weeks have seen many graduation ceremonies across the land. Here are some suitable hall entries:

"Hats off to Sophie who wore 6-inch heels to her graduation last week, made it 12 feet onto the stage, and is now part of a highlight reel titled ‘Ceremonial Faceplants’."​
A proud friend, Fovant. Phone footage available on request

Hubert replies:​
A strong finish. Academia may end, but internet fame is forever. Sadly.

"Congrats to Ellen on your graduation as Master of Medieval History, with distinction (naturally). Surviving your thesis proves that chaos and genius often go hand in hand".

Proud parents, Sixpenny Handley

Hubert replies:​
At least she’ll understand why the modern job market feels feudal.

got exam results? let us know

Being mid-August, we're entering exam results season! Hubert's Hall is perfect for passing on congratulations or messages of support. Whilst the results are not out at time of writing, the following gives examples of the kind of stuff we like.

"Congratulations to my daughter Ella who passed all her A-levels with grades high enough to disappoint her imposter syndrome. She will now panic recreationally at university instead."​
​Gordon, Whitsbury

Hubert replies:​
Splendid. Anxiety will follow her, but now it has a much better library.

"Forgot the word for ‘yesterday’ in my French oral exam. Improvised with ‘Le passé est parti’. This actually translates as ‘the past is gone’. Still got a 7."​
​Liv, fluent in existentialism, Hindon.

Hubert replies:​
Philosophy: 1. Vocabulary: 0.

"Shoutout to Alex who accidentally picked up the wrong envelope and celebrated someone else’s results for 20 minutes."​
​Will, with the actual grades, Iwerne Minster

Hubert replies:​
Delusion is half the battle.

Over to you, readers. If we don't get any submissions we may have to make up some more, and its hard. Help us out by submitting your entries here.

Well, that’s all until next week. Who knows what could happen; maybe someone will try to toast panini in the parish defibrillator again (which, to be clear, is still not approved kitchen equipment).

If something in the undergrowth knows too much and won’t stop hinting, you could drop us a line on the email; or maybe just keep it to yourself, eh?

Until next time: stay curious, and whatever you do, don’t accept anything from anyone who says they foraged for it “under a blood moon.”

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