Places to visit, attractions, heritage and things of interest in Dorset, England.
A Bit About Britain is delighted to welcome author April Munday, as a guest writer introducing us to Fiddleford Manor. Fiddleford Manor, such a great name, is a small manor house in North Dorset. It’s one of those places that you reach via a long lane from the main road that goes on until you’re […]
South West England has two main draw-backs: it is popular and, as it’s on the west, it can suffer from wetness – particularly at its extremities. Other than that, it has pretty much everything, including mystery, prehistory, history, cuteness, grand vistas, impressive buildings and plenty of things to do. For an introduction, see A Bit
Ten of the best in the west Read More »
This is an appropriate question, since it is rumoured that couples creep up to the Cerne Abbas Giant at night in order to make babies. As the Giant is cut into a hill with a reasonable degree of slope on it, the mechanics of their actions must be somewhat of a challenge; but each to
Is the Cerne Abbas Giant one of Britain’s most loved figures? Read More »
A tiny cottage, close to the Dorset HQ of the Royal Tank Regiment at Bovington Camp, was once owned by one of Britain’s most fascinating and enigmatic figures, T E Lawrence – also known as Lawrence of Arabia. The cottage is called Clouds Hill and it was built in 1808 as a forester’s or labourer’s
Lawrence of Arabia’s bolt-hole Read More »
We wanted to walk along Dorset’s Jurassic Coast and hunt for fossils. No, that’s not quite right: I wanted to walk along the Jurassic Coast and hunt for fossils; Head Office wanted to find a sun-drenched beach to lie on. Influenced by the fact that parking in National Trust car parks is included in our
Between Golden Cap and Charmouth Read More »
Lulworth & Durdle sounds like a law firm. Commissioners for oaths; adversarial specialists; rip-off fees; incompetence guaranteed – that sort of thing. I have known at least four firms that should have been called Bungle, Overcharge & Obfuscate. Anyway, close by the Dorset village of West Lulworth on England’s Jurassic south coast is Lulworth Cove.Â
Lulworth & Durdle Read More »
By the time the soldiers came, the villagers had gone. They had moved, under a blanket of secrecy, to new homes while they waited for the war to end and the troops to leave; while they waited patiently to return to whatever was left of their homes.  But they never went back, not one of
They needed to break the deadlock. By the end of 1914, men had gone to ground in the wasteland of the Western Front. Perhaps, some thought, a breakthrough would come when the weather improved and cavalry could be used. But attacks through coils of barbed wire against well-defended dug-in positions, from which machine-gun and rapid
Including Bristol and Bath, the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and the Isles of Scilly. I keep returning to the West Country. Somerset’s worth visiting for the place names alone – where else would you find such choice tongue pleasers as Wyke Champflower, Huish Episcopi, Shepton Beauchamp, Great Shitting (I made that
A bit about South West England Read More »
