One Of Our Most Beautiful English Counties
Here is a quiz question: Can you link three sailors in English Literature, a Captain in the Royal Navy, an ordinary sailor and an officer of the French Navy, and find the answer in an English county?
Well the answer is Dorset that beautiful and often forgotten county on the south coast of England.
Jane Austen made visits to Lyme Regis on the Dorset/Devon border in 1803 and 1804, and her last novel, Persuasion, which was published posthumously in 1817, is largely based in Lyme Regis. It tells of the love between Anne Elliott and Captain Wentworth RN.
In the opening chaptersThomas Hardy’s best known book The Mayor of Casterbridge, published in 1886, an inebriated Michael Henchard offers his wife, Susan, for sale and she is bought for five guineas by a sailor.
In 1965, John Fowles moved to Lyme Regis and one day, whilst out walking in the bay, saw a woman standing motionless on the Cobb. She was looking out to sea and he imagined her looking for a lost lover, perhaps a lieutenant in the French navy, and thus gave Fowles inspiration for his book ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’, which later was made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.
They are all, in completely different ways, extremely romantic and tear-jerking novels based in what can quite certainly be called ‘Romantic Dorset.’ If it is a romantic county, why do I also describe it as a forgotten county? Perhaps because Dorset is one of only seven English counties without a motorway and undoubtedly one of the reasons for the preservation of its historic and indeed pre-historic landscape.
That part of the Dorset coastline, nearly a100 mile stretch from Lyme Regis in the west to Studland Bay in the east, is known as The Jurassic Coast and is a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site.
A number of years ago my wife and I, with two friends and our four dogs, walked the whole length of the South West Coast Footpath from Minehead in North Somerset, around Lands End at Cornwall’s point, to Poole Harbour - a distance of 630 miles. The section though Dorset was undoubtedly one of the most interesting, varied, and, in parts, challenging sections of this wonderful coastal walk.
There are two areas of Dorset designated as National Landscapes, (formerly AONB’s ); The largest being ‘The Dorset’ National Landscape of 1,128 square kilometres and ‘The Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs’ National Landscape of 278 square kilometres.
Dorset has a good number of impressive natural and well known features along its coastline including Golden Cap, between Bridport and Charmouth, the highest point on the south coast of England at 191 metres, Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch at Lulworth Cove and Old Harry Rocks a chalk stack and stump on the Isle of Purbeck, near Swanage.
Inland, there are also some interesting natural and man-made features of the landscape including Badbury Rings, an iron age hill fort and scheduled monument, Corfe Castle, a 1,000 year old castle and The Cerne Abbas Giant, a 55 metre high male figure holding a club. It is cut in to the chalk on a hill above the village and considered by many to be a fertility site for those women who come to sit on the Giant’s most prominent feature!
The county also has two islands. Brownsea Island, which is the largest of the two in Poole Harbour, is owned by the National Trust, has a resident population of red squirrels and was where, in 1907, Baden-Powell held the first experimental camp which led to the creation of the now world-wide Scout Movement.
At the southern end of the Isle of Purbeck is Portland Bill, not technically an island but a narrow promontory or bill. Portland Stone has been quarried there since Roman times and has been used in several famous buildings such as Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral and for the Cenotaph in Whitehall.
Additionally, Dorset is also home to some of the finest churches in the U.K. including Sherborne Abbey in the west with its fine fan vaulting and which has been, over the centuries, a Saxon cathedral, a Benedictine abbey and, since 1539, a parish church. In the east of the county, Christchurch Priory dates from the middle of the 11th century and the Domesday Book states that at the time of Edward the Confessor it had 24 canons.
Today one of the reasons that buyers instruct a Recoco Property Buying Agent, like myself, is because they wish to acquire a rural property and live near to some of the excellent schools which Dorset has an abundance of. Independent schools include, Bryanston, Canford, Sherborne, Milton Abbey, Leweston and Talbot Heath. Dorset is also fortunate in still having grammar schools in both Bournemoth and Poole.
In recent years I have found and purchased a number of village houses for Recoco clients and some of these have been in delightfully sounding villages like Litton Cheney and Netherbury. Other quirkily named villages in the county include Child Okeford, Lychett Matravers, Okeford Fitzpaine, Ryme Intrinseca, Toller Porcorum and Worth Matravers.
Dorset is also where the King, when Prince of Wales, chose to build a new village, Poundbury, on the edge of the county town of Dorchester.
For those starting a Dorset property search in 2024, Dorset is, without doubt, one of the most popular counties for those wishing to purchase a weekend or holiday home. It is only a two hour drive from London and a lot less than a four or five hour drive to counties further west such as Devon and Cornwall.
I am looking forward to searching out and buying properties in Dorset during 2024 for my Recoco clients relocating to or within the county. From what I have seen of the housing market in the South West in the first few weeks of this year, it is clear that there will be a shortage of properties offered for sale and I predict that at least 40% will only be available ‘off market’. Fortunately for our clients, I am able to access these properties via the wealth of contacts that I have accumulated and sustained over the years.
As we move towards the Spring we will soon get a much clearer idea of what this Leap Year has to offer.