Dorchester - Durnovaria

Sign at South Dorchester Rail



Thomas Hardy statue in Dorchester

 The walk we did yesterday in Dorchester was our first foray into the Chesters of South West England.  I've been a big fan of Thomas Hardy since my teenage years and I've read almost all of his novels, including Tess of the D'Urbervilles and The Mayor of Casterbridge, both of which are set in Dorchester, fictionalised by Hardy as Casterbridge.



The Military Keep Museum



I'd been in Weymouth and Portland before, but this was only my second trip to Dorset and the walk we did was one of the most beautiful walks of the Chester series thus far.  Dorchester is an interesting enough town to spend a day.  Whilst BAM couldn't make it down from London until the evening, I arrived in the late afternoon and took a walk around the town, browsing in the shops of South Street and exploring the sights of the High Street, made famous by Hardy's novels.  I also walked around the old Roman fortifications and walked as far as The Keep Military Museum.  Dorchester seems to have a lot of museums - as well as the Keep, there was a Teddy Bear Museum, the Dorset County Museum, a Tutankhamun Exhibition, a Dinosaur Museum and an exhibition on the Terracotta Warriors (one of the few permanent exhibitions outside China which is devoted to the Terracotta Army!)

I overheard two ladies on South Street talking about an upcoming dramatisation of Tess and local posters informed me about Friday night's ceilidh, although we missed the Ghost Tour which took place on Thursday!  It's always a bit of a culture shock coming from London and dipping suddenly into the life of a rural town, like many of the Chesters we've been visiting.  By the time BAM arrived at Dorchester South Railway station, it felt as though I were one of the locals and as though I'd been in Dorchester for years, rather than hours!

 Lodging and Victuals

Visiting the Chesters isn't just about walking, of course - food and accommodation play an important part as well and we were really lucky to stumble upon a lovely little restaurant off Trinity Street which was called Billy's Fish Restaurant.  It has a very unassuming entrance and could be easily missed, but once you get inside, the decor is great and the food was absolutely amazing!  I had King Prawns with potatoes and I'd highly recommend Billy's place, if you ever find yourself in the locale.



King Prawn's at Billy's



We stayed at a B&B called The White House on Queen's Avenue, which was very good value for money, incredibly clean, with a spacious room and lovely red tiles in the bathroom.  Queen's Avenue is rather a grand driveway, planted with lime trees, leading up to The Thomas Hardye School.  I've learned this weekend that there was more than one Thomas Hardy, this one being a 16th-century merchant who founded the school to educate local boys. 

The B&B owners, Mr and Mrs Lees were very welcoming and have been running the B&B for 26 years!  We met an interesting older couple at breakfast who moved from England to Adelaide more than fifty years ago and had come back to meet some old friends their daughter had managed to contact through the Internet.  We got a bit distracted listening to their story and set out on the walk later than expected. 

In previous walks, I had been using pen and paper to try to measure the distances between one point on the map and the other.  However, it always seem to be longer than we'd expected and most of our previous Chester walks were around 12-16 miles, rather than 8-12, which is more comfortable (especially when you get chatting over breakfast and set out late!)  Not to be outdone by my erratic cartography, BAM invested in a small piece of technology, a kind of map measurer, which made planning this walk much more straightforward (and accurate) than previously.  It definitely made a big difference and we felt less rushed towards the end, which was a contrast to past walks when we were racing along the countryside outside Sleaford so we would be on time for our train, scrambling up over the Portchester downs in the failing light and finding ourselves plunged into the darkness of muddy fields in the Hundred of Hoo!

Dorchester to Maiden Castle (1.7 miles/2.7 kilometres)



A sheep at Maiden Castle

 After stocking up on water and chocolate on Maud Road, we made our way down to the Maiden Castle Road and a very pleasant walk out of Dorchester to the site of this Iron Age Fort.  The area that is now Dorset, Somerset and south Wiltshire was originally inhabited by a Celtic tribe called the Durotriges - it's from this tribe that we get the Roman name for Dorchester, Durnovaria and the Saxon name for the county of Dorset.  It's one of the best preserved Iron Age forts in Britain and I thought it was fantastic, especially the steep ramparts, which still look incredibly formidable.  It's mostly inhabited by sheep these days, but the view from the top is wonderful and it was a great start to our day's walking.  It's the kind of landscape you could imagine Thomas Hardy's characters to be roaming around in and I think this part of England is very beautiful, with its roly-poly hills and views down to the sea. 




BAM walking through Maiden Castle




Maiden Castle ramparts

 Maiden Castle to the South Dorset Ridgeway signpost (1.6 miles/2.6 kilometres)



Bridleway to Higher Ashton Farm

 When I'm planning these walks, I usually 'cheat' a little bit, by getting us on to one of the National Trails - partly because it's easier to follow a way-marked trail, but mostly because the way-marked trails go through some of Britain's most spectacular scenery.  Dorchester doesn't lie on any of the way-marked trails, so I improvised the 1.6 miles from Maiden Castle to the South Dorset Ridgeway, using a combination of public bridleways to make sure we didn't stray onto private land. 



South Dorset Ridgeway signpost

 There's a bridleway that runs to the west of Maiden Castle and it was really easy to follow this until it came out onto a small country lane and then a slightly bigger road (the B3159) which runs between Broadwey and Winterbourne Abbas.  We crossed the B3159 at Higher Ashton Farm and took another bridleway running diagonally uphill through two fields and then along the eastern side of another field until it meets the South Dorset Ridgeway with a handy signpost outlining your options!  The options at this point are east to Bincombe or west to the Hardy Monument, so we turned west, as planned and in keeping with our general direction. 



South Dorset Ridgeway

 I've done quite a bit of walking in England and have walked more than half of the South West Coastal path, which also runs along the Dorset coast not far from our Dorchester walk.  The Ridgeway is an interesting alternative to the coastal path and one that I'm getting very interested in.  There are quite a few ridgeway walks in the south of England, the most famous one being in Oxfordshire/Berkshire (reputedly Britain's oldest path).  The South Dorset Ridgeway is a 17-mile walk from Osmington Mills to West Bexington and can be walked as an additional stage or an alternative loop in the South West Coastal route.  It was certainly a very pleasant walk and the views over Portland and Chesil Beach were second-to-none!

The South Dorset Ridgeway signpost to the Hardy Monument (2.3 miles/3.7 kilometres)

It's quite windy on top of the Ridgeway and the shadows over the landscape added a dramatic tone to early afternoon light.  You can see the Hardy Monument in the distance, as you're walking and, at 239 metres (784 feet) above sea level, it was the highest point of the day for us. 



The Hardy Monument, Portesham



Blackthorn

 The monument was built in honour of yet another Thomas Hardy, the Vice Admiral Hardy who was a commander in the Battle of Trafalgar, famously close to Admiral Nelson and remembered in (one of) Nelson's dying phrases Kiss me, Hardy! Myself and BAM had a discussion about the significance of Nelson's words and how they could be interpreted so differently in the modern era of gay rights and recognised relationships between men.  We concluded that it was a very different time and that, perhaps, it would be a little bit unfair to apply a modern interpretation to Nelson's words.  It's an interesting thought, all the same and no-one seems to know whether or not Hardy kissed Nelson on the head, the cheek or gave him a good old-fashioned snog!  I guess we'll never know . . .

Unfortunately for us, the Monument is undergoing repairs and the bottom half is currently covered in scaffolding.  Nevertheless, it was an apt compliment to our Portchester walk, when we rested in the shadow of the Nelson Monument on Portsdown Hill. 

The Hardy Monument to Abbotsbury (2.9 miles/4.7 kilometres)



Benecke Wood

 From the Hardy Monument we went downhill through Benecke Wood, then followed a stone wall running along the bottom of three fields until we reached another small road at Portesham Hill.  We crossed the road and passed Hampton Barn, sticking to the top of the Ridgeway with sweeping views over Abbotsbury Plains we could see parts of Chesil Beach, in the gaps between the low-lying hills of the coast.  Eventually we crossed Bishop's Road, which links Abbotsbury to the Hardy Monument and then we turned downhill again, leaving the South Dorset Ridgeway to follow a small valley down through fields full of sheep, until we reached the road again and continued into Abbotsbury.  



Abbotsbury

 The weather was glorious with a late-afternoon sunshine and Abbotsbury was full of daytrippers, eating ice-creams, walking their dogs and shopping in the local gift shop.  It was a nice way to end the trip and Abbotsbury has a lot of quaint thatched cottages, as well as a famous swannery and tropical gardens, just behind Chapel Hill. 




View of Chapel Hill and Abbotsbury Plains




Gable-end cottage in Abbotsbury

 Disabled/Wheelchair Access



Bluebells near Abbotsbury

 As my sister is disabled and has one of those clunky motorised wheelchairs, I've promised to include information about wheelchair access (if any) in our Chester walks.  Unfortunately, most of this route was completely inaccessible to wheelchair users, the only exception being the walks around Dorchester and the road leading to Maiden Castle (although wheelchair users would find it difficult to get into the fort itself). 



View of Portland Bill

 It's always dangerous walking or wheelchairing along country roads, even quiet ones like Maiden Castle Road, but an alternative to this walk might have been to continue along the cycle path from Maiden Castle to Martinstown (although I'm not sure if the cycle path is completely accessible) and then along Bishop's Road from Martinstown to the Hardy Monument and down in Abbotsbury.  Maybe some day, wheelchair users will have access to routes like this one, without too much interference from drivers (who, let's face it, have lots of other options!). 



Thatched cottage in Abbotsbury

 The landscape is the same as the one we passed through, although I imagine that wheelchair users, especially people in motorised wheelchairs like my sister's, which are dependent on electric batteries, might want to limit their journeys to shorter stages such as Dorchester-Martinstown, Martinstown-the Hardy Monument or the Hardy Monument-Abbotsbury. 

Image credits:

All images were taken either by me or my Best Aussie Mate (BAM).  Please feel free to re-use these under the Creative Commons license for Non-Commercial, Share Alike and Attribution (especially to this blog).