pasture and arable fields. It rises above the church in Alton Pancras, which was originally named Awultune, a Saxon name meaning the village at the source of a river.

At Puddletown, 6 mi south of the source, the chalk dips below clay and alluvial sand and gravel geology with a flatter landscape of water-meadows. Here, the Piddle turns to follow an east-south-easterly direction 12 mi to Wareham, where it enters Poole Harbour via