Hambledon Hill, Dorset, UK, in late afternoon sunlight. Photograph: Mark Bauer/Alamy

National Trust is a private UK-based conservation organization whose nearly 4,000,000 members and more than 60,000 volunteers make great things happen. That leads to about 50,000,000 visitors to sites like this recently created protected area:

National Trust buys Hambledon Hill in Dorset

Pristine chalky outcrop is a treasure trove of plant species and a butterfly haven untouched by modern farming since Iron age

Ranger Clive Whitbourn is on his hands and knees scrabbling around the steep slopes that form the ramparts of one of the UK’s finest iron age forts. He is getting whiffs of the distinctive cucumber aroma of salad burnet – and cannot rest until he has found it. “There it is,” he says triumphantly. “Once you get your eye in [and nose] you see so many different plants here. It’s amazingly rich.”

This is Hambledon Hill in Dorset, which soars to almost 200m above sea level, giving fantastic views of three counties and providing an intriguing insight into how people in this corner of south-west Britain have lived over the past 6,000 years.

The National Trust on Thursday announced that it has bought the chalky outcrop, which is home to myriad flora and fauna – and cattle and sheep that graze the slopes and help turn it into a wildflower and butterfly haven. The site is important because it has not been damaged by modern farming techniques but the trust says work constantly needs to be undertaken to make sure it is not taken over by thorn and scrub.

Human influence on Hambledon is profound and ancient. It was probably cleared of ancient forest in neolithic times but it was iron age man who created the ramparts, one of the most impressive earthworks in southern Britain. The remains of a village on the plateau can be glimpsed in circular areas of levelled ground that shows the position of iron age huts.

Hambledon Hill was also the scene of a civil war battle when clubmen – who banded together to protect their land against the foraging of the roundheads and royalists – camped on the top only to be dispersed by the new model army and branded “poor silly creatures” by Oliver Cromwell…

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