page_title: Puddletown
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Puddletown / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Water Meadows near Puddletown This is the river Piddle running through water meadows at Druce farm just NW of Puddletown
context_page_description: Puddletown is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated by the River Piddle, from which it derives its name, about 4.5 miles northeast of the county town Dorchester. Its earlier name Piddletown fell out of favour, probably because of connotations of the word "piddle". The name Puddletown was officially sanctioned in the late 1950s. Puddletown's civil parish covers 2,908 hectares and extends to the River Frome to the south. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 1,450.
  Puddletown's parish church has significant architectural interest, particularly its furnishings and monuments. It has a 12th-century font and well-preserved woodwork, including 17th-century box pews. Thomas Hardy took an interest in the church, and the village provided the inspiration for the fictional settlement of Weatherbury in his novel Far from the Madding Crowd; Weatherbury Farm, the home of principal character Bathsheba Everdene, is based on a manor house within the parish.
context_section_description: Puddletown civil parish extends between the flood plain and watermeadows of the River Frome in the south to the chalk watershed of Puddletown Down in the north. It covers 2,908 hectares (7,185 acres) and is bisected by the River Piddle, which crosses it from west to east. Measured directly, Puddletown village is about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) northeast of Dorchester, 16 miles (26 km) west of Poole and 11 miles (18 km) southwest of Blandford Forum.
  The bedrock geology of the parish comprises rocks formed in the Santonian and Campanian ages of the Cretaceous period and the Eocene age of the Palaeogene period. In places these are overlain by younger Quaternary drift material: river terrace and head deposits, clay-with-flints, and alluvium—the last found only in the valley floors of the larger watercourses. On Puddletown Heath (now mostly covered by Puddletown Forest) are more than 370 solution hollows or sinkholes; these constitute the largest concentration of hollows on the heathlands in the area.
  The River Frome, which forms the southern boundary of the parish, is designated by Natural England as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Southwest of the village and almost wholly within the parish is Puddletown Forest, which covers 301 hectares (740 acres) and is managed by the Forestry Commission. The forest is on the edge of the Dorset Heaths Natural Area and some of the forest is being restored to heathland; the heath flora consists of Calluna, Ulex gallii, Ulex minor and bilberry; fauna includes the rare smooth snake and sand lizard. Close to Puddletown Forest are Yellowham Wood and Ilsington Wood, which are ancient woodland sites, though Ilsington Wood has significant conifer plantings.
caption: Old watermeadows on the River Piddle northwest of Puddletown at Druce Farm
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-LX2", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2008:12:30 14:38:24", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "420", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "7838", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5338", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:12:30 14:38:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:12:30 14:38:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "453", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "7714", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "32", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "df3ccdb66522cbbe6b0f713e624de327"}