Length: 22 km

Duration: 9:08

Total ascent/descent: 578/598 m

Max/min slope: 17%/-19%

Wayfinding: medium, map and compass or GPS essential.

Weather: cloudless, hot afternoon, shorts

Transfer: Taxi from Dorchester to Lower Kingcombe

Lunch: The Ollerod, Beaminster

Overnight: Laverstock Farm Airbnb

Lower Kingcombe

8:30 taxi with Adelaide of Charlton Down Taxis again from Dorchester back to the Kingcombe Meadows Nature Reserve. Imagine a kindly but taciturn matron of a Soviet canteen, and you get a picture of her. A smooth driver with no chitchat, she was immaculate as her dark blue BMW A5.

She took a call during our drive. The caller began with, “hello this is so and so, I called you yesterday but I didn’t need a taxi.” At which she shrugged and waited for so-and-so to recover from such an awkward greeting without offering any aid of social cliches.

The village was tiny and the cottages were attractive. It was surrounded by the reserve. The path through the reserve to leave the village was a long holloway of coppiced hazel.

The path then went through Kingcombe Coppice, which was still a worked coppice when my guidebook was written in 1999.

Hooke

It was to be a day of holloways.

Hooke was a small village dominated by Hooke Court, presumably a manor house that turned into a school and now a nursery and educational facility.

Toller Whelme

Tiny hamlet consisted of East Farm, manor house, and West Farm. East Farm seemed to run holiday cottages with a lake and special pigs. West Farm looked to be a residence primarily. The manor house had high walls and its garden overgrown from what could be glimpsed.

Beaminster

The way towards Beaminster Common, a barren yellow lawn north of the town, had spectacular views on the ridgeway. The descent was tedious and slightly dangerous. The houses on this side of the town were also ugly.

The centre had attractive buildings and independent shops. We had a good lunch at the restaurant in the Ollerod Hotel.

Leaving from the south side was much better: grassy paths and old stone buildings. Then ascent to something even better.

Gerrard’s Hill, Chartknolle, Stoke Knapp

Gerrard’s Hill had a crown of trees and trig point. Panoramic views. The sheep seemed to like the trees too, leaving lots of poo.

Chartknolle was a small valley of steep escarpments joined at sharp angles, with a pond at the bottom. I missed a good photo spot and never managed to take a photo.

Deeply sunken holloway in Stoke Knapp.

Lewesdon Hill

On the way up to Lewesdon Hill, the path was lined with old oaks, beeches and hollies.

Then it was a forest of magnificent beeches, an oasis. Mulching leaves, tugs of short grass, moss and ferns were the only ground cover. The trees were master and guardian.

Laverstock Cottages

Laverstock Cottages had old farm buildings of yellow stones converted to holiday cottages to let. There were about 10 units of different sizes. There was also an orchard, chicken cage, goat pen, games room, and very good honesty box with free veg and fruit from the garden. We bought some eggs and apple juice, and took advantage of a very large courgette on offer.

The loft we stayed in was spacious with generous supplies of coffee and tea and biscuits, Faith in Nature toiletries, and a firm bed. All made the stay comfortable.

The farm seemed to be working farm. The fields around it were grazed by a lot of cows. But the holiday cottage part was very manicured and surrounded by estate fencing. Mowed lawns and et cetera.