Dorset

A county of beauty, inspiration and super-history.

Wallow in Thomas Hardy Country. Around Dorchester – Dorset’s county town – are the rolling hills of the Wessex countryside, that inspired Hardy’s powerful and vibrant novels and poetry.

Much of Dorset’s coastline is known as the Jurassic Coast – England’s only natural World Heritage Site. It has given up many important fossil finds and has unique landforms including the stunning Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. A fascinating area overlooked by the ruins of Corfe Castle, crowning a rock pinnacle.

Wide sandy beaches helped put Bournemouth on the map as a great British seaside resort, while royal patronage – in the person of George III – made Weymouth one of Britain’s earliest resorts. Then there is Abbotsbury with its swannery protected from the sea by the Chesil Bank, and Lyme Regis with the ‘film-famous’ Cobb from French Lieutenants Woman and the setting for Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

Do not forget Poole Harbour, one of the world’s largest natural harbours. A wildlife wonderland, with Brownsea Island a woodland nature reserve, a wildfowl and heron sanctuary and site of the original scouts.

Few other towns in Britain have as many unspoilt medieval buildings as Sherborne. Its Abbey Church is a gem. Then tone up those calf muscles exploring Gold Hill, in the picturesque and much-filmed hilltop town of Shaftesbury.