The 1st known settlement of Dorset was by Mesolithic hunters, from around 8000 BC. Their populations were tiny and concentrated along the coast in the Isle of Purbeck, the Isle of Portland, Weymouth and Chesil Beach and along the Stour valley. These populations used tools and fire to clear these areas of some of the local Oak forest. Dorset’s high chalk hills have supplied a location for defensive settlements for millennia, there are Neolithic and Bronze Age funeral mounds on nearly every chalk hill in the county, and a considerable number of Iron Age hill forts, the most renowned being Maiden Castle, assembled around 600BC. The chalk downs would’ve been deforested in the Iron Age, making way for agriculture and animal husbandry.

Dorset has Roman artefacts, especially round the Roman city Dorchester, where Maiden Castle was caught from the Celtic Durotriges by a Roman Legion in 43 AD under the command of Vespasian, early in the Roman occupation. Roman roads radiated from Dorchester and from the hillfort at Badbury, following the tops of the chalk ridges to the numerous tiny Roman towns round the county. The Romans also had a presence on the Isle of Portland, creating – or changing – hilltop defensive earthworks on Verne Hill. In the Roman time, settlements moved from the hill tops to the valleys, and the hilltops had been deserted by the 4th century.

A massive defensive ditch, Bokerley Dyke, delayed the Saxon conquest of Dorset from the north east for up to 200 years. The Domesday Book documents many Saxon settlements corresponding to modern cities and hamlets, mostly in the valleys. There have been few changes to the parishes since the Domesday Book. Over the following few centuries the settlers established the pattern of farmland which overcame into the nineteenth century. Many priories were also established, which were crucial landowners and centers of power.

There are countless hundreds of different care homes in Great Britain offering many various kinds of services. Some offer full time nursing care, others support folks with a particular incapacity or medical need. Residential and nursing care homes can be run by local councils, non-public firms or not-for-profit firms. Your local council will help you find a care home to satisfy your requirements, or the Commission for Social Care Inspection ( CSCI ) has a listing of all registered care homes in Dorset. Charities that offer support for certain incapacities can be helpful and might have inventories of care homes that offer specialized support and experienced staff.

A vital consideration when you’re selecting a care home is whether you want one that offers nursing as well as private care.