West Knighton to near Hardy Monument

Today we walked to the south of Dorchester, from West Knighton to the south-east of the town to the Hardy Monument to the south-west. It felt very much like a walk of two halves; the first was through a varied landscape, then, past Upway, we had a bracing and rather wet ridge walk. From our holiday cottage, we drove around the A35 Dorchester by-pass, then took progressively more minor roads that climbed up through Winterborne St Martin and on to a parking area at a place known as "Smitten Corner" at SY616878, just before the final bit of the climb up to the Hardy Monument. Then we returned to West Knighton to a spot close to where we'd parked on our last walking day (SY733875) - and we were off!

Our enforced diversion last time meant that we hadn't walked through the centre of the village then, so I insisted on walking off our direct onward route, just as far as the church. Then we took a path north, to a track which took us west. I think we passed a dog-walker and some horses in this area, but I am afraid I can't remember; note to self that it is important to write up walks in less than the 2+ months it has taken me to write up this one. Having said that, it is quite nice to re-live the experience. I have much stronger memories of our walk around Whitcombe, a  pretty little place, but the route-finding was a bit unclear and access to all the buildings was distinctly private.   Whitcombe gets described as a village, but it seems consist of little more than a  manor house, church (shown) and tithe barn, and its total population is only about 20, so hamlet might be a better description.

The final part of our circumnavigation of Whitcombe was south along the A352, then we crossed the road. The route on the map is shown as following around the edge of the next field, starting off by heading north again, parallel with the road. However, on the ground, the route was much more direct, as we climbed Whitombe Hill, meeting a man walking the other way. We reached and meandered our walk through the delightful Cole Hill Wood. 

Out the other side of the wood, we were greeted by more delight, now rolling chalk downland, with a Palladian house straight ahead of us. The house is Came House (now a wedding venue), but before reaching it, we turned left on a track and continued across the rolling landscape. For half a mile or so we were crossing a ploughed field with Cole Hill Wood behind, giving a memorable chalky brown foreground with a green backdrop. Later, after turning left, but keeping our generally southward direction, the fields became greener and there were occasional clumps of trees. It remained very attractive walking. There is obviously quite a network of paths around here; the man we'd passed earlier was coming towards us again - he must have found a circuit!

We turned right to Warren Barn, where we turned left, and we were saddened to discover that significant felling of trees was in progress in Came Wood. However, it all made more sense when we saw the signs which explained that the trees being felled are diseased ash trees, and they will be replaced by mixed woodland. The felling operation is quite an undertaking, and a young man was controlling the traffic to allow lorries to access the site and to leave with logs. 

At the same time as watching the logging operations, we became aware that we suddenly had a spectacular view to the coast and the "Isle" of Portland. That view was with us for large parts of the rest of today's walk as we headed in a generally westwards direction. It was exciting to realise that we were only a few miles north of where we had walked on the South West Coast Path.  Indeed, we had also joined the South Dorset Ridgeway  which was the original route of the South West Coast Path (until the section around Portland was added in 2003) and we had followed a small section of it, between West Bexington and Abbotsbury in 2013, as an alternative to walking along Chesil Beach.

We'd turned right by the logging activity and continued along the road for a little while before turning left into a field. The route here was rather unclear and the grass was long, but we found our way along to where traffic on the main road between Dorchester and Weymouth was speeding along in a cutting below us. In order to cross this road, we had a head north for a while, but the frustration of having to go out of our way for a while was tempered by the attractive bank of cowslips that we walked alongside. 

A bridge took us across the A354, still in its cutting, and from here the South Dorset Ridgeway continued straight ahead on what looks like a straightforward ridge walk to the Hardy Monument. However we turned left, with the Jubilee Trail, heading by way of the village of Upwey to a more southerly ridge. The walking was pleasant enough but the route finding was a little fiddly and we went the wrong way on a couple of occasions. We eventually found the path running behind houses and down to the road near Upwey's Wishing Well Tea Rooms and Water Gardens and adjacent church. It was all very pretty and a bench in the churchyard provided a good place to stop for lunch.

After lunch, we took a path next to the Wishing Well  Tea Rooms which led up into pretty woodland and continued to climb, up past the roofs of Upwey and beyond. Eventually we reached open land and found ourselves at the top of the ridge, again with good views to Weymouth and the Isle of Portland to the south. The weather had deteriorated though, and it was cold up here. We put on waterproofs to keep the wind out, and I was pleased to find a pair of woolly gloves in the pockets of my coat. No sooner had we put on the waterproofs than they were needed for another purpose: it started to rain! The signposted route of the Jubilee Trail took us across rough ground with rather long grass, so all in all, it was wet and not particularly pleasant walking.

To get through a gate, we headed to the right of where we had thought the route of the Jubilee Trail to be, and here we found a better track which led us up onto Friar Waddon Hill. The correct route down to a road was less clear, but we managed to emerge in the right place and the rain had eased. However, we decided against immediately climbing again, over the summit of Corton Hill, because the weather still wasn't great and there was nothing to be gained by this ascent and descent; we instead stayed on the road which contoured around the hill.

Close to the point where we'd have emerged if we'd taken the path over Corton Hill we turned right onto a track and climbed briefly before forking left and continuing along "Hell Bottom". We were now definitely heading towards the Hardy Monument, through a large field of sheep with lambs. A shepherd was out on his quad bike checking up on things, and he explained that one of the things he was doing was reuniting the lambs with the mother bearing the same number. Sheep 301 had lost one of her lambs; later on, we spotted the baby!

Leaving the sheep behind, we climbed up through gorse to rejoin the South Dorset Ridgeway, and then up to the road and the carpark, a few hundred metres below the Hardy Monument. The Jubilee Trail continues straight across the road while the South Dorset Ridgeway climbs up to the Hardy Monument (which has nothing to do with Thomas Hardy the author by the way; it erected in honour of  Lord Nelson's captain, also Thomas Hardy,  who was with Nelson at the time of his death during the Battle of Trafalgar).