In the top row of pictures:

• The castle, an 18th century imitation built around a blockhouse first built by Henry VIII in 1545–7 (picture)
• Greeting all visitors to the island, an effigy of Lord Baden Powell (picture)
• Ths island is still regularly used for Scout and Guide camps (picture)
• Some of the island's noisier residents – peacocks (picture)
• Several easy forest trails criss-cross the island (picture)

In the bottom row of pictures:

• From the western end of the island, the view westwards across Poole Harbour towards Arne (picture)
• All that remains of the ill-fated Victorian attempt to set up a pottery on the island (picture)
• And all that remains of Maryland, a small settlement of 20 cottages for workers at the pottery (picture)
• The elusive Red Squirrel. Absent from most of England due to competition from the fiercer Grey Squirrel, there are small populations on Brownsea Island and the Isle of Wight. Notoriously difficult to spot on the island during August, their frantic efforts to collect beech-mast during October render them sitting targets (picture)
• For the return to Poole the ferries normally make a circuit around the harbour, passing Green Island – amongst others – on the way (picture)

Other sites on the web

The National Trust:   visitor information for Brownsea Island

The Dorset Page:   Brownsea – local information and links to further resources on the web

Maps of the area on streetmap.co.uk:   1:50,000 – detail, 1:250,000 – locality and route to get there

The pictures of Brownsea Island in this gallery were captured at high resolution.
This is images of dorset stock photography gallery 062
All photographs copyright © 1998–2003 John Allen