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Brownsea Island

The largest island in Poole Harbour, its place in the history books closely linked the Scout and Guide movement – for it was on this island that Baden Powell (later Lord Baden Powell, founder of the movement) held an experimental camp for 20 boys in 1907, from which the modern day movement evolved. Today the island is owned by the National Trust and is still used for Scout and Guide camps. The northern shore of the island is set aside as a nature reserve and is frequented by a wide range of coastal wading birds. With a boat trip required to get on and off the island it is always an enjoyable day out.

Over the winter months the island closes to visitors, but to give people a chance to see some of the 250 or so Red Squirrels on the island the opening hours were extended in 2002 into the month of October (when the pictures in this gallery were taken) and may be later still in future years.


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In the top row of pictures:

  • The castle, an 18th century imitation built around a blockhouse first built by Henry VIII in 1545–7 (picture)
  • Greeting all visitors to the island, an effigy of Lord Baden Powell (picture)
  • Ths island is still regularly used for Scout and Guide camps (picture)
  • Some of the island's noisier residents – peacocks (picture)
  • Several easy forest trails criss-cross the island (picture)

In the bottom row of pictures:

  • From the western end of the island, the view westwards across Poole Harbour towards Arne (picture)
  • All that remains of the ill-fated Victorian attempt to set up a pottery on the island (picture)
  • And all that remains of Maryland, a small settlement of 20 cottages for workers at the pottery (picture)
  • The elusive Red Squirrel. Absent from most of England due to competition from the fiercer Grey Squirrel, there are small populations on Brownsea Island and the Isle of Wight. Notoriously difficult to spot on the island during August, their frantic efforts to collect beech-mast during October render them sitting targets (picture)
  • For the return to Poole the ferries normally make a circuit around the harbour, passing Green Island – amongst others – on the way (picture)

Nearby locations that also feature in galleries on this site:

directionPoole, Poole Harbour

directionBournemouth

directionStudland Bay

directionArne and Middlebere, Wareham

More views of Dorset in October


Other sites on the web

The National Trust:   visitor information for Brownsea Island

The Dorset Page:   Brownsea – local information and links to further resources on the web

Maps of the area on streetmap.co.uk:   1:50,000 – detail, 1:250,000 – locality and route to get there

picture resolution
The pictures of Brownsea Island in this gallery were captured at high resolution.
This is images of dorset stock photography gallery 062
All photographs copyright © 1998–2003 John Allen


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