Category: Rural Matters

The Rural Matters section is a special section sponsored and reserved for the local CPRE.

The CPRE or Campaign to Protect Rural England is a charity set up to help protect the rural countryside.

In this section you will find articles mainly by Rupert Hardy, Chairman, North Dorset CPRE. There are ocaisonally guest writers but always from the CPRE.

We like that the subject matter is wide and varied, from dark skies, to planning, hedgerow maintenance to Fingerposts.

Always something new and always interesting to read. The CPRE’s main aim is to help make the countryside a better place for us all to live.

Local History

North Dorset’s forgotten Scallywags

They were farmers, labourers and tradesmen, but Dorset’s Auxiliary Units trained in silence to become Britain’s last, lethal line of defence, says CPRE’s Rupert...

14 February 2026

Local History

John Morton – the face in the roof that shaped Tudor England

CPRE’s Rupert Hardy introduces the Dorset man who was Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry VII’s Lord Chancellor, and the deviser of Morton’s Fork If you visit...

24 January 2026

Property law and finance

Dorset housing: targets vs needs

Rupert Hardy says Dorset’s draft Local Plan could be ruled unsound if it sticks to inflated government housing targets - ONS data says Dorset’s...

21 December 2025

Rural Matters

The great Dorset hedge comeback

Across Dorset, farmers and volunteers are joining forces – Rupert Hardy finds out how the Great Big Dorset Hedge is quietly reshaping our rural...

25 November 2025

Local History

The Dorset Cursus: the biggest Neolithic monument in Britain

Exploring Britain’s largest Neolithic monument, stretching across six miles of Cranborne Chase, with Dorset CPRE’s Rupert Hardy Built around 3,300 BC – predating Stonehenge by...

15 October 2025

Dorset community news