NEWS / Matterley Bowl: A venue with history!

For the weekend of Blissfields we are sure that we will make it our own, however it has in previous years been a site of note for events such as Homelands and HiFi which catered for up to 50,000 partying in the bowl. Therefore we are going to find it a great space for 5,000 to party and camp! The bowl is a well known local feature, sometimes known as " The Punch Bowl" and It is a venue of outstanding beauty with the slopes being designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest (and therefore off limits!) where the species that grow on their chalkland environment are monitored. The base of the bowl where the arena and camping will take place is part of The Matterley Estate and used for grazing their dairy herd.

In World War II it was a marshalling area for American troops before they embarked on D-Day, the natural amphitheatre made a perfect setting for a US Army boxing match where Joe Lois fought, and also for General Eisenhower to address the troops before they set off to liberate Europe.

It also has a less serious footnote in history due to crop circles! In 1991, more than a decade after the phenomenon began, two men from Southampton announced that they had conceived the idea as a prank at a pub near Winchester during an evening in 1976. Doug Bower and Dave Chorley made their crop circles using planks, rope, hats and wire as their only tools.The pair became frustrated when their work did not receive significant publicity, so in 1981 they created a circle in the Bowl, the surrounding roads gave a clear view of the design, the resulting coverage was some of the earliest press on the phenomenon in the UK.

For more info go here

Check out the Matterley Bowl webcam here