A tour of Dorset villages

---

With a heatwave being forecast for the weekend, we headed away from the coast today hoping to avoid the crowds. We drove north to Wimborne Minster and then took the B3078 towards Cranborne. At Moor Crichel we took once again to the lanes and motored through Gussage All Saints, Wimborne St Giles and Boveridge on our way to Sixpenny Handley for morning tea. Jim seems to know all of the best eating places within a 30 mile radius!!

After morning tea we drove on to Tollard Royal where King John had his hunting lodge and used to go hunting on Cranborne Chase. From Tollard Royal we continued on the B3081 to Win Green where we enjoyed breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. In fact, Jim and Marilyn could not remember enjoying better views from this viewpoint than those we had today.

We stopped in Shaftesbury to take in the view from Gold Hill. This is one of England’s most famous views having been used in a number of films (eg. Far From The Madding Crowd) and advertisements (eg. Hovis Bread). It is an absolutely picture perfect view so we secured quite a few photos of that one! We eventually had lunch in Shaftesbury. I say eventually because it took them an inordinately long time to deliver our very simple order: two ploughman’s lunches, one soup of the day (Leek and Potato) and a ham and brie baguette!! For a while we were joking that they must have gone out to find a ploughman for the lunch or bring back a Leek from Wales!!

From Shaftesbury we headed off on the A30 towards Henstridge where we turned south onto the A357, A3030 and B3143 to visit more picturesque country churches at Buckland Newton and Mappowder. We got a bit confused about their relevance to me as I am descended from Emily Darby whereas Marilyn is descended from Edward Darby. The Samways were from Buckland Newton and Mappowder and a Sarah Ann Samway married into the Darby family back in the late 1800s.

Next we headed towards Hilton and Milton Abbas. The stately home and abbey is now a public school. On a glorious afternoon we were lucky enough to see a couple of games of cricket being played in the grounds as we drove down the hill. How quintessentially English!

After spending most of the afternoon negotiating the hedgerows we finally meandered our way back onto the A35 at Bere Regis. Bernie had a nice, easy drive then back to Poole along the A35!!

---