Warmwell Airfield quarry
Warmwell Airfield is an exhausted quarry of 48 hectares located six miles from Dorchester close to Crossways village, just off the B3390. It is bordered by Aggregates Industries’ Warmwell quarry, a minor road and open fields. Surface glacial gravels and underlying Bagshot sands have been worked at the site since the 1970s and taken to nearby West Knighton quarry for processing.
Final excavation was completed in 2010. Around half the site was restored by the early 1990s and the remainder was subsequently reinstated in summer 2011.There is no permitted public access to the site, but it is used by local people for dog walking.
Habitat, flora & fauna description
The area restored in the 1990s has developed into a mixture of neutral to acid wildflower grassland with patches of scrub and two ponds. The grassland varies from denser, taller swards to quite open, short, low fertility grassland.
Woody scrub areas consist of gorse, oak, birch, pine and willow with some extensive patches of bramble. The new restoration is being developed into a series of permanent and ephemeral ponds across the quarry floor that will be surrounded by wildflower grassland, generally using lower fertility subsoils, with steeper edge batters dressed with topsoil to be planted with native tree and shrub species. In addition, considerable areas of open sand face will be retained for both sand martins and invertebrates.
