Why Dorset is England’s most overlooked coastal gem

From fossil-rich shores to farm-fresh feasts, Dorset rivals Cornwall and Devon for beauty – yet draws half the crowds

“Hardly anyone has set foot here in 350 years,” says our guide Alistair Butcher, as sunshine enlivens the pale Purbeck limestone, “and before then it was only monarchs.”

I’m halfway through the Kings’ View tour at Corfe Castle, and now feeling extra-special. Utilising a purpose-built wooden platform, the tour takes small groups 20 metres up the one-thousand-year-old fortress’s main, skeletal tower to where a private royal chapel once stood. Until late 2024, no-one had been up here since an English Civil War bombardment in 1646. Now, these tours, which are part-funding Corfe Castle’s preservation, can be experienced until May 2026. Thank goodness, I think afterwards when gaping up at these lofty, romantic ruins. Seeming oversized atop their diminutive hillock, they inspire awe like few other British historical sights do.

Even though it’s a weekday morning, people are pouring in. Happily, such busyness is rare in Dorset, a county criminally overlooked by holidaymakers intent on Devon or Cornwall. Dorset barely registered half as many overnight stays as either of those in 2024, despite being closer to London and hosting some equally satisfying shores.

Coastal indulgence: Seaweed spas and farm-fresh feasts

Four of the best flank Studland Bay. Each backed by heather-topped dunes, they share four miles of uncrowded, latte-coloured sand and fine views of Old Harry Rocks – chalky-white sea stacks named, depending on which local you ask, after Satan or a sneaky pirate.

I enjoy those same vistas from one of the two roll-top bathtubs in an open-fronted hut just above Middle Beach. Offered by Fore Adventure – whose next-door office arranges paddleboarding, foraging trips and other adventurous excursions – this is the Seaweed Spa, offering an hour’s wallowing in hot, algae-infused water. Inhaling the tangy seaweed aroma and listening to gentle waves leaves me feeling wonderfully serene.

Equally agreeable is dinner at the nearby Pig on the Beach, one of the popular Pig chain’s 13 shabby-chic hotels across southern England, and this time in a vanilla-hued manor house. Championing produce from within a 40-kilometre radius, its plant-strewn conservatory restaurant is full to the convivial rafters. And no wonder, I think, from the first flavour-crammed mouthful of my tomato, goat’s cheese and chorizo salad.

Exploring Dorset’s Jurassic Coast

Sweeping southwest from here, Dorset’s UNESCO-protected Jurassic Coast includes fossil-rich shores around twee Lyme Regis, the dinky island of Portland, with its red-striped lighthouse, and Weymouth, a charming bucket-and-spade resort where families precede Punch and Judy shows with donkey rides.

None of those top the double act of Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove for visual wonderment, however. The former is a 61-metre-high, sea-straddling keyhole arch that has been fashioned from limestone over millennia; the latter a perfectly scallop-shaped inlet below chalk-streaked rocks.

Bleary-eyed, I reach Lulworth Cove at dawn and walk along a typically bumpy mile of the coast path. As Durdle Door’s own car park doesn’t open until 9am, anyone ogling the arch before then is usually rewarded, like me, with uncommon tranquility. Having taken hundreds of photos while sunrise streaked the sky orange, I pad back contentedly to Lulworth Cove, whose pleasing circularity is best appreciated from atop one of the pincer-like cliffs that almost enclose it.

“Wowww,” a young girl gasps to her father, as they, too, arrive to marvel at the bowl of cobalt sea below. “It’s like a giant swimming pool.”

Where to stay: Dorset’s new generation of country retreats

There’s an actual swimming pool at Dorset’s most exciting hotel, 64 kilometres west. Louma is a farmstay, yet one pairing rusticity with cool. It has horses, pigs and a vineyard, but also a wellness barn, that indoor pool clad in distressed timber, artisan fabrics showcasing soft shades of toffee or oatmeal, and zingy, seasonal food overseen by the ex-River Cottage chef John Long. Factor in the unusual full-board rates plus activities from horse-riding to yoga and it all amounts to a cosseting, members’-club vibe.

The best part, though, is how wonderfully calming Louma proves – much aided by hypnotic views over hedgerow-framed fields and church spires to the sea. And, should you book a contemporary Timber Stable, by the added slumber of an outdoor hot tub.

Replete with quaint cottages, this cobbled lane climbs steeply to unfurl stupendous views over the Blackmore Vale’s lush lowlands.

Storybook towns and timeless countryside

Inland Dorset is a motorway-free maze of stately homes, hill forts and dawdling tractors, little changed from its depiction in Thomas Hardy’s novels. Pockmarking this sleepy rurality are tens of market towns rich in thatch or honeyed stone. While many entice, three stand out.

First up for me is well-to-do Sherborne. Here, enticing emporiums sell Bella Freud jumpers or cave-aged Cheddar around an 8th-century abbey church that the painter John Constable called “finer than Salisbury Cathedral”. It’s easy to concur, gazing over squads of stained-glass windows to a glorious, golden-hued vaulted ceiling.

After making the short drive to Shaftesbury, I start plodding up Gold Hill. Replete with quaint cottages, this cobbled lane climbs steeply to unfurl stupendous views over the Blackmore Vale’s lush lowlands.

“It’s known as the Hovis Street,” reveals a barista in the natty florist-cum-cafe Pamplemousse — referring to a famous 1973 commercial that was filmed on Gold Hill for the bread brand, and directed by a certain Ridley Scott. Staying faithful to the bakery theme, I devour one of Pamplemousse’s cinnamon iced buns.

My circuit concludes in Wareham, a once-powerful port. So clearly defined remain its medieval defensive walls that a walking path soon has me delightedly striding along their grassy tops. Then appears the narrow River Frome, at whose junction with Wareham’s main road are a small stone quayside and marketplace.

Two inns line this attractive plaza, yet the finest hospitality hides behind it. The Priory hotel has been gradually fashioned from a 500-year-old building and an older-still monastery. Ranging wildly in shape, its 17 rooms nonetheless afford the same classy feel courtesy of dark-wood dressers and thick carpets. Besides a formal restaurant that excels at game dishes, pretty private gardens spill down to the Frome.

In the cosy upper lounge, a card-playing couple tell me that they holiday in Dorset every year. “We’re always astonished at how underrated it is,” says the husband. “But that’s part of the charm.”