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Perfect Purbeck … continued

The Lulworth Crumple

Studland
The road from Corfe to Studland offers panoramic views over Poole Harbour before dropping down to the long stretch of sand lined with beach huts that can be rented by the day.

There are good pub meals at the Bankes Arms and footpaths around the headland past Fort Henry, where Churchill, Eisenhower and King George VI watched, in 1944, the only mock attack in Britain using live ammunition. Or you can pick up the Coast Path to hike above Old Harry Rocks towards Swanage.

Swanage
Enid Blyton visited Swanage three times a year for 20 years and, today, Swanage is still Purbeck’s only seaside resort. Visit the Heritage Centre on the seafront to find out how Swanage changed from being a ‘stone port’ to a holiday centre and why it’s home to a collection of old London landmarks.

A famous resident, stone merchant George Burt, planned to build posh houses on nearby Durlston Head in the 1860s. Fortunately there were no takers – and today Durlston Country Park is an area of Special Scientific Interest with downland flowers, seabird colonies and hay meadows. Burt, however, is remembered for flamboyant Durlston Castle and the Great Globe, carved from Portland stone and measuring 10ft across.

Coast Path/Jurassic Coast
No tarmac road hugs the coast here but you can access the South West Coast Path at several points. Follow it – if the mood takes you – the length of the Jurassic Coast through Weymouth and Lyme Regis to Exeter and Cornwall beyond.

The Purbeck stretch is like an interactive geology book – all the formations you’ve ever heard of spread out in full colour. There’s Kimmeridge Bay with its layers of fossil-bearing rock; the coastal arch of Durdle Door, and the Fossil Forest east of Lulworth Cove.

The cove itself rates highly in the Impressive Geographical Features stakes – a horseshoe shape formed by a breach in the limestone cliff. It’s among the most accessible sections of the World Heritage coast, so don’t expect to visit on your own. But views from the headland above Stair Hole are worth sharing. You’ll see the famous Lulworth Crumple – not a nasty affliction, but a complex fold in the layers of exposed rock.

Monkey World
Inland Purbeck has plenty of alternative attractions. To the west of Wareham lies Monkey World, home to dozens of chimps and gibbons, squirrel monkeys and orang-utans – all rescued and rehabilitated from tragic lives.

The stories on each cage are heart-rending. ‘Found tethered at a Spanish petrol station.’ ‘Rescued from a Dutch laboratory.’ ‘Illegally imported into Turkey as a pet.’ Regular visitors clearly have established favourites – and it’s not hard to understand why.

Bovington Tank Museum
A short drive from Monkey World is a very different attraction: Bovington Tank Museum houses the world’s largest collection of armoured fighting vehicles. It also commemorates Thomas Edward Lawrence – Lawrence of Arabia – who joined the Tank Corps here in 1923 after his return from Arabia.

Clouds Hill
Lawrence purchased Clouds Hill – a cottage in the woods nearby – as a bolthole where he could read, relax and entertain friends. Now owned by the National Trust, its four highly-individual rooms are open in the afternoon, together with a small exhibition about his life. Lawrence was killed in a fall from his Brough Superior motor-bike in 1935, after swerving to avoid two cyclists.

Thomas Hardy's birthplace

Hardy’s Cottage
A short drive away, just beyond the Purbeck boundary, is a celebrity home of a different kind. Thomas Hardy was born in a traditional thatched cottage – now owned by the National Trust – at Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester, in 1840. By the time he died, in 1928, at the age of 88, Hardy had become one of Britain’s best loved writers. He wrote vividly of the scenery of Dorset in his Wessex novels, including many places in Purbeck.

As we drove home towards Middlebere Farm across the peaceful Purbeck heathland it was reassuring to see that there are still some typical Hardy landscapes to be admired.

Contact writer Gillian Thornton

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