Leeson House is a field studies centre in the village of Langton Matravers in the heart of the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, England. The Isle of Purbeck forms part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, designated in 2001. Run as a day and residential centre by Dorset County Council Outdoor Education Service it has been providing environmental education since 1966.
There has probably been a dwelling of some sort on or near the site of the present house since Saxon times. The site was recorded in the Domesday book as 'Lestington', meaning "the farm of the followers of Lest". In 1805 Reverend John Dampier knocked down most of the farmhouse and built a new home, calling it Leeson house. He later sold it to the wealthy Garland family from Poole to use as a second home. In 1903, it was sold again and became a boarding school for girls. In 1940, the girls were sent home during World War II. The house was taken over by the Air Ministry and was used for top secret Radar research. From Leeson they completed the world's first successful tracking of a submarine, in Swanage Bay. Due to concerns about the safety of the project it was moved inland after only 18 months. Several air raid shelters still exist on site. There is a project to convert a bomb shelter to attract the Greater Horseshoe Bat to roost. After the war it became a boy's boarding pre-prep school which closed in 1966. In 1967 Leeson House was officially opened as a Field Studies Centre. [1]
The main house is Grade II listed and dates back to the early 19th century. It provides accommodation for up to 60 students plus staff, two dining rooms, two lounges, games/conference hall, changing room/drying room and a separate teaching block with fully equipped field laboratory, a library and two classrooms. The centre has seven acres of private grounds that contain a wide variety of habitats including three ponds, meadows and woodland areas. There is also a bird hide, games field and a small campsite. Deer and badgers are frequent visitors to the grounds and a healthy population of newts reside in the ponds. [2]
Leeson House runs field study and outdoor education courses for pupils from reception to A level, offering activities tailored for each school. [3]
Corfe Castle is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. It is the site of a ruined castle of the same name. The village and castle stand over a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. The village lies in the gap below the castle and is around four miles (6.4 km) south-east of Wareham, and four miles (6.4 km) north-northwest of Swanage. Both the main A351 road from Lytchett Minster to Swanage and the Swanage Railway thread their way through the gap and the village.
Kimmeridge is a small village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula on the English Channel coast in Dorset, England. It is situated about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) south of Wareham and 7 miles (11 km) west of Swanage. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 90.
Swanage is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck and one of its two towns, approximately 6+1⁄4 miles (10 km) south of Poole and 25 miles (40 km) east of Dorchester. In the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 9,601. Nearby are Ballard Down and Old Harry Rocks, with Studland Bay and Poole Harbour to the north. Within the parish are Durlston Bay and Durlston Country Park to the south of the town. The parish also includes the areas of Herston, just to the west of the town, and Durlston, just to the south.
The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the north. Its western boundary is less well defined, with some medieval sources placing it at Flower's Barrow above Worbarrow Bay. John Hutchins, author of The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, defined Purbeck's western boundary as the Luckford Lake steam, which runs south from the Frome. According to writer and broadcaster Ralph Wightman, Purbeck "is only an island if you accept the barren heaths between Arish Mell and Wareham as cutting off this corner of Dorset as effectively as the sea." The most southerly point is St Alban's Head.
Purbeck was a local government district in Dorset, England. The district was named after the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula that forms a large proportion of the district's area. However, it extended significantly further north and west than the traditional boundary of the Isle of Purbeck which is the River Frome. The district council was based in the town of Wareham, which is itself north of the Frome.
Durlston Country Park is a 320-acre country park and nature reserve stretching along the coast of the Isle of Purbeck on the outskirts of Swanage in Dorset, England. The park is a popular destination for tourists to enjoy the walks, views, visitor centre, climbing, and wildlife, including Durlston Castle, the Great Globe, Tilly Whim Caves, and Anvil Point Lighthouse. It is a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, forms part of the 630 mile South West Coast Path, and is owned by Dorset Council.
Langton Matravers is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset in the south of England. It is situated about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Swanage town centre and 5 miles (8 km) south-east of Corfe Castle. In the 2011 Census the civil parish had 381 households and a population of 853.
Worth Matravers is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. The village is situated on the cliffs west of Swanage. It comprises limestone cottages and farm houses and is built around a pond, which is a regular feature on postcards of the Isle of Purbeck.
The Purbeck Hills, also called the Purbeck Ridge or simply the Purbecks, are a ridge of chalk downs in Dorset, England. It is formed by the structure known as the Purbeck Monocline. The ridge extends from Lulworth Cove in the west to Old Harry Rocks in the east, where it meets the sea. The hills are part of a system of chalk downlands in southern England formed from the Chalk Group which also includes Salisbury Plain and the South Downs. For most of their length the chalk of the Purbeck Hills is protected from coastal erosion by a band of resistant Portland limestone. Where this band ends, at Durlston Head, the clay and chalk behind has been eroded, creating Poole Bay and the Solent. The ridge of steeply dipping chalk that forms the Purbeck Hills continues further east on the Isle of Wight.
Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone.
Durlston Bay is a small bay next to a country park of the same name, just south of the resort of Swanage, on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, England. It has been a renowned site for Lower Cretaceous fossils since the initial discovery of fragments there by Samuel Beckles in the 1850s.
Lytchett Minster School is a comprehensive school, with about 1,400 students aged 11 to 18, and 100 teachers, in Lytchett Minster, just outside Upton, 4 miles (6 km) from Poole, Dorset, England.
Durnford School was an English preparatory school for boys which opened in 1894 on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.
Kimmeridge Bay is a bay on the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula on the English Channel coast in Dorset, England, close to and southeast of the village of Kimmeridge, on the Smedmore Estate. The area is renowned for its fossils, with The Etches Collection in the village of Kimmeridge displaying fossils found by Steve Etches in the area over a 30-year period. It is a popular place to access the coast for tourists. To the east are the Kimmeridge Ledges, where fossils can be found in the flat clay beds.
The Fossil Forest is the remains of an ancient submerged forest from Jurassic times, located to the east of Lulworth Cove on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, England. It lies on the Jurassic Coast, on a wide ledge in the seaside cliff. The site is within the Lulworth Ranges and thus has restricted access. Parts of forest can also be seen on the Isle of Portland and in quarries near the town of Weymouth to the west.
Anvil Point is part of the Jurassic Coast on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, England. It is within the grounds of Durlston Country Park and is about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from Swanage town centre. Anvil Point Lighthouse is located on the point.
Durlston Castle stands within Durlston Country Park, a 1.13 square-kilometre (280-acre) country park and nature reserve stretching along the coastline south of Swanage, on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.
Hobarrow Bay is a small secluded southwest-facing bay, with an oil shale and shingle beach to the southeast of Brandy Bay and to the southwest of Kimmeridge on the south coast of the Isle of Purbeck, in Dorset, England.
The Kimmeridge Oil Field is an oil drilling site, northwest of Kimmeridge Bay, on the south coast of the Isle of Purbeck, in Dorset, England..
Dorset is a county located in the middle of the south coast of England. It lies between the latitudes 50.512°N and 51.081°N and the longitudes 1.682°W and 2.958°W, and occupies an area of 2,653 km2. It spans 90 kilometres (56 mi) from east to west and 63 kilometres (39 mi) from north to south.