| DORSET EVENTS 2007 Publicise your event here! |
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Lulworth_Cove Dorset_Beaches,_clean+dirty | Chesil Bank | Dorset recipes | Poundbury |
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| USEFUL DORSET LINKS Used by the Editor | ||
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The Blandford Fly is back!! In case you're wondering, it is a nasty little insect flying close to the ground and feeding on human blood. The proper name is Simulium posticatum. The danger period used to be from about 10th May until mid-June, but now it seems to be all summer. You seldom notice it until it's gone, leaving a spot of blood, then spend the next week nursing anything from an annoying itch to a large incapacitating swelling. Supposedly inhabiting cracks in the mud on the River Stour's banks, there has been a campaign to eliminate it by spraying the banks; it seemed to be working up until 1997. There was an unlikely rumour that it had escaped from Bryanston school's biology department. Now it's back, certainly in the North and central Dorset area. Hall & Woodhouse brewers recommend ginger: Blandford Fly Ale. Please report sightings using this link, even if late, and they will be posted here. Attention people living in Bournemouth near the Stour, we recommend that you write to the local council and ask for action to be taken against the Blandford fly on the River Stour. You can quote a successful campaign in North Dorset. Most of this summers' recent reports have been from Bournemouth. Local doctors and hospitals should be becoming aware of the issue.
How to avoid being Bitten |
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Lulworth Cove/Durdle Door Cycle to/park at West Lulworth for Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. Lulworth Cove is at the western edge of the range and has the fossil forest on the seaward side of the eastern opening (inside the range). click here for a page with larger versions |
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| Lulworth Cove and the neighbouring Stair hole are very interesting geologically - crumpled beds of Purbeck stone.
click the picture for a larger version
Lulworth online |
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Chesil Bank (beach) | |||||
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Chesil Bank is a ten-mile shingle bar enclosing 'the Fleet'; its pebbles are graded from small at the western end to large at the eastern end, then sharply smaller at Weymouth.
Cycle to/park at Abbotsbury (western end) or Weymouth (eastern end).
click here for a page with loads of thumbnails & photos, including outlook across at Abbotsbury Swannery and the WW2 tank traps at the western end. |
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Dorset Steam Fair Wednesday-Sunday in early September, this annual event has been going 30 years. Everyone should go at least once. The chief attractions are:
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Lulworth Range Walking westwards, from Kimmeridge to Lulworth Cove, is the Lulworth Army range. Being about 7500 acres with 7 miles of coastline, it is mostly closed to the 'public' (it was requisitioned for WW2). It is however open every weekend with a few exceptions in 2003: 10th and 11th May / 14th and 15th June / 11th and 12th October / 22nd and 23rd November It is OPEN for holidays: Easter / May Day Holiday / Spring Holiday week / whole of August. Before each public opening every path is walked to check for munitions (50000 shells fired per year). You would never forget walking this stretch of coastline. However follow the signs; keep within the wooden posts (yellow paint) and don't climb over anything. The range includes the 'lost' village of Tyneham; see the item and links in the Old Dorset area of this site. Walks from a car park:
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| this taken in 1985 from the clifftop near Arish Mell |
Dorset Beaches
Where is this beach? |
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Poundbury Poundbury is a new village (bearing the name of an old Roman camp nearby) with traditional architectural and environmental values built on Duchy of Cornwall land adjacent to Dorchester. Natives will have no trouble recognising who is behind it but for the benefit of others it is Prince Charles; maybe it is even his brainchild. Overheard: "It's very nice but I wouldn't want to actually live there" click on the image for a larger version |
The interesting sideshows, equipment and above
all people who seem to come out of the woodwork for this event. The ploughing competition, heavy horses,
village reconstruction, steam engines, vintage vehicles, steam-powered saw benches using whole trees,
worked by men in bowler hats.....
The traffic jams to get in in the morning
and out in the afternoon. Best plan is to arrive with pre-booked camping ticket about 5pm, put up tent, then
go in (half price from about 6pm) and sample the fair, food and beer for the evening. Then camp and be on site
for an early start to see the rest. Leave about 3pm or wait until 6.