Ballard Down is an area of
chalk downland on the
Purbeck Hills in the
English county of
Dorset. The hills meet the
English Channel here, and Ballard Down forms a
headland,
Ballard Point, between
Studland Bay to the north and
Swanage Bay to the south. The
chalk here forms part of a system of chalk downlands in southern England, and once formed a continuous ridge between what is now west
Dorset and the present day
Isle of Wight.
Old Harry Rocks, just offshore from the
dip slope of the down, and
The Needles on the westernmost tip of the Isle of Wight, are remnants of this ridge. The
scarp slope of the down faces south, over Swanage, meeting the sea as
Ballard Cliff. The down was an area of
calcareous grassland for up to 1000 years until
World War II, when there was a sudden rise in the need for
arable agricultural land. The down is now owned by the
National Trust, and has largely been returned to grassland. The National Trust allows
grazing on the down to prevent it becoming a natural
beech woodland climax community.