UK Travel Bureau: Comprehensive UK Tourist Information: From Travel Match Ltd (UK) Travel Match UK: The UK Travel Company & the UK Travel Bureau: Online since 2002
Home | Team | Contact Us | Maps | Visas & Immigration | Specials | Add Your Listing  |  UK Time
UK & IRELAND MAPS
Search Travel Services
ACCOMMODATION
MEETINGS/CONFERENCES
THEATRE BOOKINGS
TRANSPORT
TUBE MAP
TOURS
Custom Itineraries
UK Information Links
UK Information Guides
Search Special Travel
Myths, Magic & Legends
Battlefields Remembered
Search Destinations
ENGLAND
LONDON
LONDON 2012 GAMES
IRELAND
SCOTLAND
WALES
CHANNEL ISLANDS
ISLE OF MAN
PARIS
Odds n' Ends..!
American English!
Famous People & Places  
Administration
**ABOUT US**
Terms & Conditions
Secure Payment Options
Privacy Statement
Currency Converter
UK & Ireland Travel Information Search Engine

England > Southern England > Dorset

Dorset is Thomas Hardy country and a place of great natural beauty and quaint little English villages. Dorchester is a good base for exploring the area or, for those who prefer the coast, there's the large resort towns of Bournemouth and Weymouth or the romanticism of Lyme Regis where you can stand on The Cobb and picture yourself in Jane Austen's Persuasion or John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman.

Click on the headings to find out more: Bournemouth has been a popular resort town since the 19th Century. By day there's seven miles of clear sand, at night at least seven hours lively nightlife. A stunning feature of Bournemouth are its beautiful Chines which are sharp-sided valleys running down to the sea.


The Shelley Rooms have a collection of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley memorabilia. Mary (author of Frankenstein) is buried at St Peters.


Five miles east of Bournemouth is the attractive smaller town of Christchurch with its magnificent Priory standing between the Avon and Stour Rivers. Drive through southeast Dorset, which is dotted with thatched cottages and crumbling ruins, to Tolpuddle (A35). Tolpuddle was instrumental in the development of trades union. In 1833 a group of farmers held a meeting over wage cuts and were arrested and transported to Australia. The swell of public support for the 'Tolpuddle Martyrs' saw them pardoned in 1836. There is a small museum dedicated to the incident and a memorial under the tree where the meeting was held.


Wareham is a pretty village. It was badly damaged by a number of fires in the 18th Century after which thatched buildings were banned. Earth banks were built around the town in the late 800's following a Viking attack. A stretch on the West Wall in Wareham is known as the Bloody Bank. It was the spot where rebels were executed following the Bloody Assizes in 1685. For a gentle day surrounded by history and tranquillity, rent a rowing boat from Abbots Quay.


The Wareham Museum is well worth a visit for the Lawrence of Arabia collection. St Martin's Church (c1020) has a marble effigy of Lawrence and a 12th Century wall painting. The Bovington Tank Museum (6 miles from Wareham) has a collection of tanks from WWI to the Gulf War from both sides and was where Lawrence of Arabia was posted in 1923. Clouds Hill was Lawrence's former home and where he was fatally injured on his motorbike. It's open to the public 3 days a week from April to October. Lawrence is buried in nearby Moreton and his ghost (in Arab dress) has been seen by many and it's said that the roar of his motorbike can be heard before daybreak.


Corfe Castle, although now ruins, is an amazing place to take your imagination for a walk. The ruins tower above the pretty village and countryside below and date back over 1000 years. This was where, in 978, 17-year-old King Edward was welcomed at the gate by his stepmother Queen Elfrida who offered him a glass of poisoned wine. He drank it but, before the poison could take effect, he was stabbed to death. Elfrida's natural son, Ethelred the Unready took the throne. Ahhhh those were the days...


The Dorset coast between Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door is stunning with fine beaches dramatic coves and towering cliffs. Dorchester was the home of Thomas Hardy. For fans there are guides to places around the town became part of fiction - for example, Barclay's Bank at No 10 South Street became the Mayor of Casterbridge.


Hardy's Cottage is a few miles northeast of town and it's where he wrote Far from the Madding Crowd. Hardy was born in Higher Bockhampton in 1840 but unless you make arrangements with the current occupant, you will only get to see the outside of the thatched cottage. Hardy went to school in Lower Bockhampton and his heart is buried in the churchyard at nearby Stinsford (the rest of his body was cremated and is in Westminster Abbey). There is a story that, when his heart returned home, someone left it unattended on a kitchen table and a cat was caught enjoying breakfast.


The Tutankhamun Exhibit in Dorchester is as pretty much as good as Egyptology gets outside Egypt.


About 8 miles north of Dorchester is the lovely village of Cerne Abbas and home to the Cerne Giant, one of Britain's best-known chalk figures dating back many hundreds of years. 8 miles south of Dorchester is Weymouth (Budmouth in the Thomas Hardy novels) and is a lively seaside town. A walk along The Esplanade is sooooo English. You've probably seen similar in old British movies - the deck chairs for and beach equipment for hire, the Punch and Judy puppet shows, the donkey rides.


There are many fine restaurants in Weymouth and the nightlife is pretty good, too. There are plenty of pubs with character. The Black Dog is the oldest in town and was named after the first Labrador in England who arrived on a ship from Newfoundland.


For shopping and history, visit Brewer's Quay (Hope Square). An exhibition called Timewalk takes the town's history back to the days of the Spanish Armada and the Black Plague. There's also King George III emerging from his 'bathing machine'. Poor old George was, in the English vernacular, a bit of a nutter, but he was the first to make the seaside an attraction for the locals. He had many summer holidays in Weymouth and while his subjects may not have had a 'bathing machine' they followed his example and flocked to the coast.


On the way to Lyme Regis, Chesil Beach curves along the coast for about 10 miles. Best not to kick sand in anyone's face as it's made up of pebbles. Abbotsbury is a pretty little village with places to eat and Abbotsbury Swannery is home to hundreds of swans and cygnets and has been for over 600 years.


Lyme Regis marks the end of Dorset. The famous Cobb (a long stone pier and breakwater) from Austen's Persuasion and Fowles' French Lieutenant's Woman is where Dorset changes into Devon. Lyme Regis is also famous for it's limestone cliffs where many fossils, including dinosaurs, have been unearthed. There are plenty of fossils plus local history at the Lyme Regis Philpot Museum (Bridge Street).


Nearby Sherborne Abbey is well worth a visit with over a 1000 years of dramatic history. The Old Castle and Sherborne Castle also have a colourful history. Oliver Cromwell destroyed the Old Castle in 1645 saying it was a malicious and mischievous castle, like it's owner. 50 or so years before, Sir Walter Raleigh bought the castle but never got to live there because the Queen found other lodgings for him in the Tower of London.

After his release he started modernizing the castle but decided it would be wiser to build a new one, which he started across the road (now Sherborne Castle). Building continued for 14 years to 1608, when poor Sir Walter again found himself in the Tower under the reign of James I. The king sold Raleigh's castle in 1617 to the Earl of Bristol, John Digby. It's still the Digby family residence but is open to the public three afternoons a week from Easter to September.
VIEW AREA MAP
DOWNLOAD OLD MAP
VISITOR INFORMATION
GALLERY