Abbot’s Porch, Cerne Abbas

After his six wives, Henry VIII may be best known for shutting down the monasteries in around 1540 and pinching their land. It changed social life in England and the landscape, as many of the monastic buildings were knocked down or left to decay. This was the fate of Cerne

Ancient Technology Centre, Cranborne

The centre was founded over 30 years ago by a teacher at Cranborne Middle School. His pupils helped build an accurate copy of an Iron Age roundhouse and since then further replicas have been added, from the Stone Age to the Viking era. Today, the centre is run by Dorset

Colmers Hill, Bridport

Stand in the middle of Bridport, and the view to the west is dominated by Colmers Hill. It is more than a mile away and not especially high (about 120 metres), but there is no higher ground nearby and the hill is in direct line of sight from the town.

Corfe Castle station

A country station on a summer’s day with a steam train puffing in. It’s hard to imagine a better place to be. And Corfe Castle sums up all that is best about a country station.  It is one of five stations on the Swanage Railway. The Swanage branch

Dorsetshire Gap

It may not be the Arlberg or the Brenner, but the Dorsetshire Gap is the closest the county has to a mountain pass. It is where one of the ancient routes from the south breaks through the chalk escarpment into the Blackmore Vale. The gap is also a crossroads, as

George III statue, Weymouth

We all have our favourite holiday spot, and kings of England are no different. George III’s was Weymouth. He visited first because sea bathing had been recommended by his doctor (a Weymouth man) as a cure for his recurring mental illness, and George became very fond of the town,

Halsewell mirror, Worth Matravers

A fierce snowstorm blew up the Channel on 6 January 1786. It drove the Halsewell, a ship of the East India Company bound for Calcutta, onto the rocky Purbeck coast between Seacombe and Winspit. The survivors, who numbered 74 out of the 242 on board, scrambled onto what was later

Horn Hill tunnel

Still rather an isolated town, Beaminster was even more isolated before the building of the Horn Hill tunnel almost 200 years ago. To the north, in fact, it was almost cut off by the 600-ft Horn Hill. There was a road over the hill, but it was precipitously steep.

Horton Tower

‘A megalomaniac folly,’ Pevsner calls Horton Tower. Megalomaniac maybe, but not a folly, because it did have a practical use when built by Humphrey Sturt of Horton Manor 200 years ago. A keen huntsman, he wanted to follow his hounds when he was too old to ride, so he watched

Jon Egging memorial, Bournemouth

20 August 2011, 1.50 pm. The crowds watching the Bournemouth Air Festival are buzzing after a spectacular display by the RAF aerobatic team, the Red Arrows. The team is returning to its temporary base at Bournemouth International Airport. Making a tight turn, Red 4, Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging, blacks

Kimmeridge oil well

Geologists love the Dorset coast for its variety and oddities. Among those oddities are the shale cliffs of Kimmeridge Bay. The shale is rich in oil, which can create spontaneous fires that smoulder for years. The shale has sometimes been commercially exploited and oil from it fuelled the street lights

King Alfred statue, Shaftesbury Abbey

Middle schools (for ages 8-13) are a rarity in Dorset now. Fondly remembered is King Alfred’s Middle School, Shaftesbury, which closed in 2004. As well as nostalgic regrets, there was concern about what would happen to its prized possession: the 2½-metre-high statue of King Alfred, who

Market bell, Sturminster Newton

The Monday market at ‘Stur’ was more than a market, it was a gathering of the farming community. It was held weekly for 700 years and earned the town the title, ‘The capital of the Blackmore Vale’. As the auctioneer moved on to the next type of livestock, a bell

Moreton Ford

In the course of its 30-mile journey from Evershot to Poole Harbour, the River Frome passes through many attractive spots, but none matches this ford. Easy to get to and on a public bridleway, it is a popular alternative to the beach for paddling and generally messing about by

Musket ball holes, Abbotsbury church

Less than 400 years ago, Englishmen slaughtered Englishmen in the pitched battles of the Civil War. There were many smaller skirmishes as well, including one in Abbotsbury, which was held for the King by the Strangways family. In 1644 the Parliamentarians attacked the village. Some of the Royalist garrison hastily

Notice in Trent church

This 200-year-old notice is in St Andrew’s church in Trent. Most people know what clogs were, but pattens? They were wooden platforms with straps that fastened them over shoes. Often an iron ring was set in the sole to raise the wearer above the mud, and as

Pilsdon Manor

How lucky we are to live in the age of the welfare state, yet there are still those who fall through the cracks and cry out for rescue. For nearly 70 years the Pilsdon Community has offered a refuge, spiritual support and practical help to those in crisis or on

Sandford Heath anti-aircraft tower

You can’t fight a war without shells, and until the end of World War 2, the main explosive used to propel shells was cordite. So the factory at Holton Heath, where cordite was produced for the Royal Navy, was a prime target for Luftwaffe bombers. Raids on the factory

Sea Music, Poole

Like it or loathe it – and there are plenty of people on each side of that argument – this large abstract sculpture creates a focal point on Poole Quay in a central position at the junction with the High Street. It was created in 1991 by Sir Anthony Caro, regarded as

Still falling, Portland

Once there were over a hundred working quarries on the Isle of Portland. Today the number is in single figures. Tout Quarry was one of the casualties, the last stone being taken from there in 1982, but it lives on as a sculpture park run by the Portland Sculpture &

Studland village cross

Many Dorset village crosses are very old, but one of the newest embraces its modernity, portraying Concorde, the double helix and a World War 2 bomb among ancient features such as vines and knots. It stands near St Nicholas’s church, Studland. This masterpiece was created by the late Trevor

The Cobb, Lyme Regis

The massive stone structure known as the Cobb conjures up in the modern mind the image of a windswept Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, gazing out to sea as she awaits the return of her lover. Or Louisa Musgrove in Jane Austen’s Persuasion falling down the

Thomas Hardy statue, Dorchester

Thomas Hardy sits permanently, wearing a slightly gloomy expression and with his hat and a book on his lap, on a tree stump at Top o’ Town where four roads meet. On the plinth are inscribed simply his name and dates, 1840-1928.  The great novelist and poet is inextricably

White Mill Bridge, Sturminster Marshall

The oldest river crossing in Dorset? It can’t be proved for sure, but White Mill Bridge over the Stour has a better claim than most. The structure we see today is only 500 years old, but beneath it are timber pilings that were there 400 years before that. As

Winterborne Stickland village sign

Agriculture, button-making, blacksmithing, spinning, brewing: these were the jobs that occupied people in rural Dorset in the days before revolutions in transport and communications opened up the world and ended villages’ isolation for ever. They are all to be seen on Winterborne Stickland’s beautifully carved village sign, which