FOLLOWING on from the success of the Georgian Faces exhibition, this month sees Dorset County Museum host a celebration of south Dorset’s most striking geological feature.

Ridgeway Voices is a temporary display focusing on the South Dorset Ridgeway and the work of the South Dorset Ridgeway Heritage Project, which is part of the work of the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership and was funded for three years by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Natural England.

The South Dorset Ridgeway is a unique area of ancient landscape, with possibly more Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary monuments than anywhere else in the country.

The exhibition discovers this special landscape through the ‘voices’ of people who live, work or simply enjoy the Ridgeway, sharing their experience and love of the area.

Visitors will be able to listen to memories related by local residents including tales of childhood games past, first meetings with loved ones or surviving the Second World War. Many ‘voices’ also recall farming on the Ridgeway.

Sarah Harbidge of Dorset County Council’s AONB team is the exhibition curator and says she has had a fascinating time putting everything into place.

“It has been lovely that people have wanted to be a part of it,” she said.

“Many of them talked about growing up here and getting married and how the war affected them. There are tales of rural life and farming and the oral history side of things is continuing because people are still contacting us and wanting to be involved.

“Other people are taking part by leading walks linked to the exhibition simply because they love the South Dorset Ridgeway and want to pass that on.”

Visitors will be able to listen to the spoken histories on special handheld devices as they walk through the exhibition.

Also included are photographs by Sue Macpherson ARPS, films and a collection of historic photographs and objects relating to life in the 20th century.

Ridgeway Voices is also supported by an events programme which includes walks and a great evening’s entertainment with storyteller Tim Laycock, who will be creating new stories from memories within the exhibition and bringing some favourite tales to Dorset County Museum on June 10.

Sarah added: “For me, the beauty of the Ridgeway is the mix of open space and its sense of scale.

“Whether you are looking out to sea or inland the view is wonderful and I love the knowledge that people have been using the land for 4,000 years before I came here. You are walking across history.”

Sarah said that researchers initially thought there were a few hundred barrows – burial mounds – on the Ridgeway but that that figure has been revised to nearly 1,000.

There are also many cist burial pits that were discovered during the construction of the Weymouth-Dorchester Relief Road.

“Basically, the Ridgeway is one massive cemetery and there is evidence that although some barrows were used just the once, others were re-used on a grand scale.

“We are still working on how far people came to bury their dead here but we think they used it because it is a prominent place and the soil is too poor for farming. But as far as places of archaeological interest go, it is up there with Avebury and Stonehenge.”

A guidebook covering all aspects of the South Dorset Ridgeway, including its history, geology and wildlife, is being published this month as a companion to the exhibition.

Ridgeway Voices runs until June 25, 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday at Dorset County Museum, High West Street, Dorchester.

Entry is free, as is the walking festival and the evening with Tim Laycock.

Booking is essential, call 01305 228239 or visit southdorsetridgeway.org.uk