Dorset. Famous for its stunning coastline, bustling seaside towns and green rolling countryside. It’s a place we love here at Foot Trails, so Becky, Alastair and myself from the Foot Trails team were delighted to be checking one of the circular routes in our Landscapes & Seascapes of Dorset trip.
With the sun in the sky and a spring in our steps, we were looking forward to exploring this history-rich corner of South West England. We started off in a classic Dorset village, wandering down quiet country lanes past wisteria-clad thatched cottages, country gardens bursting with flowers and out into fields of sheep and their boisterous lambs.
Cheery wildflowers lined the verges and spurred us on as we walked onwards and upwards to the remains of an Iron Age hillfort built around 2500 years ago. This ancient monument dominates the surrounding countryside, offering breathtaking views in all directions. In the bright spring air, we could see all the way to the coast. After exploring the ridges and dips of this ancient hilltop, we made our way down through more stunning landscape, hardly noticing the distance our feet were covering as we were so focused on the views.
Our Trail Guide took us past an old farm owned in the 1700s by one of the most notorious smugglers in the west of England, who used the hill’s prominent position to guide ships full of contraband from the continent to the English coast. On we walked past the site of a castle, rumoured to have once been the winter palace of Saxon King Athelstan, a grandson of Alfred the Great. It was just past here that we rested at a local inn for refreshments. The ice cool drinks in the shady beer garden were very welcome and we enjoyed chatting with local patrons who were curious to find out what route we were walking.
We continued to walk the rolling Dorset countryside, through shady woodland, past clear babbling streams and over fields of golden meadow buttercups swaying gently in the warm breeze. Back at our startpoint, we felt tired but truly refreshed after a day immersed in the countryside. The beauty of Dorset having worked its magic on us again. The slower pace of life – a world of thatched cottages and drystone walls, of neolithic forts and Saxon kings, wildflowers and the sound of bleating lambs. I hope it won’t be long till we’re back again.
