In Giant's Footsteps

a Micro-break in Dorset's autumnal countryside

I haven’t looked forward to three specific days so much in rather a long time. Our last holiday away from home, was visiting family in the snowy wastes of Canada’s high prairie, Christmas 2022. After that long, two nights in a B&B Pub in a picturesque Dorset village sounded like the ultimate luxury. We were staying in the village of Cerne Abbas, famed for a huge chalk figure carved into the hillside above the village. The giant has a huge… reputation (if you know, you know!) and has recently been dated to early medieval/Saxon creation by archaeologists, surprising many historians. Cerne Abbas is also famed for both its once significantly large Abbey, and its prowess at brewing beer. The village once boasted 15 pubs, at a time when it only supported 1500 residents, now however there are only three pubs, but with an estimated population of 866 (2021 census), plus a brewery down the road, there’s still plenty of nourishment to go around. We were staying at the ironically named ‘The New Inn’, a former coaching inn dating from the 16^th century, which oozed cosy, yet kept a vibrant edge with its exciting seasonal and local menus, friendly but impeccable service, comfortable rooms, and excellent bar.

I was singing ‘We’re off to see the giant, the wonderful giant of Cerne!’, as we left Sussex, but it seemed Dorset had plans to make an impression, even before we checked in, kicked off our boots, and took our first sip of Palmers Copper ale at The New Inn bar.

“Road closed for live firing. No access.”… Our arrival in Dorset for a two night break, didn’t start as planned. It was my husband’s birthday, and I had a chocolate cake and birthday candles stashed in the boot of the car, a box of matches smuggled in my handbag, and plans for a surprise breakfast on the beach to catch the low tide. I peered through the windscreen, my mind slow to process thanks to the early morning start and two hour drive, realisation dawning with dismay as I stared at the locked gates across the road ahead of us. Damn Dorset. The feeling of being very much out of my own territory and “not from ‘round here” itched the back of my skull. If only I’d known to check the dates and times of the military ranges exercises. I’d been the one organising this holiday after all, and was acting as navigator from the front passenger seat.

“Never mind”, I said brightly, inwardly seething that I’d overlooked a simple thing. “Let’s just skip the beach, and go to Corfe Castle earlier than planned instead.” My husband valiantly executed some careful reversing and a comedy-esque multi-point turn to retrace our drive back downhill and round the narrow bends, and soon we found our way to the village of Corfe.

The village itself huddles around the base of the hill much like a flock of sheep hunker at the foot of a sheltering oak to brace against incoming weather. Looking up from the narrow streets of cottages in honeyed-grey stone, coloured doors and painted window frames, Corfe Castle looks like every imagining of a castle: a near conical hill, topped with crumbling towers and ruined stone walls, black specks of crows swirling around its blind window openings.

These days the approach to the castle is somewhat sanitised; you pay your entry fees at a modern National Trust visitor centre, pretend to read the interpretation boards, then a kindly paved and cobbled path leads visitors up hill and around the ruins. The former portcullis and drawbridge, defensive gates and arrow slits, only evident now as scars in the stonework. The voices of cannon and musket fire, replaced by multi-national chattering and laughter, and the projected speech of field-trip leaders, whilst the daily smells of life lived in close proximity to raw materials, animals, and manual labour, and without modern sewerage, long replaced by the waft of chips from the pub garden.

Another gust of wind thudded into my back, forcing me to take an involuntary step forward. I turned to the oncoming weather, feeling the thrill of untamed nature as the wind skirmished around the castle walls. I had been studying the flora of the short turf that capped some of the lower stone walls and structures; Vipers Buglos, Alexanders, Scabious, and also Valarian still flowering in both its pink and white forms. Ivy flowers in the first days of opening their autumnal nectar bar buzzed with insects; Ivy Bees possibly, flies and several hoverflies certainly, but none that could stay still long in the buffeting wind making identification impossible. I found my husband engrossed in reading the historical information boards, hat removed and clamped firmly under one arm for safety, beard and hair blown wildly about, and called his attention to the view and approaching rain.

The same vista that once afforded castle inhabitants and defenders advance warning of attackers, now offers visitors the same advantage towards incoming weather. The strong south-south-westerly was blasting banks of cloud in fluffed up and whipped formations, in from the coast, the hills causing those that were heaviest with moisture, to cool rapidly and drop sharp squally showers in localised downbursts. Each hill was getting a dousing, and Corfe was directly in line for the next curtain of silver rods that could be seen moving rapidly in across the view. I imagined that with experience, one could judge almost to the exact moment, how long one would have to seek shelter before such a squall hit; I reckoned this particular fast moving front would reach our lofty tower in approximately 2 minutes. We ducked behind the stone walls, the wind pushing the rain so fast that a vertical barrier between you and the open elements being more important than a roof – horizontal rain doesn’t get much chance to fall through the roof void when the wind is chivvying it to such an extent. A sort of insane laugher bubbled up in our chests as we clung on and weathered the passing violence, before everything eased and we emerged, blinking into sun. I studied the view with greater appreciation and fascination; laid out below were steeply rolling hills like the backs of breaching whales, across which draped pelts of woodland and heath and agricultural land like the patches and mattes of a half-shed fleece, and here and there were bright metallic glints of wet roads and church roof tiles of the village.

The village was far below us, and looked like a perfect model; I could pick our the houses, and there the sweet shop, and the bakers and the newsagents, the church on its rise, and the track of the heritage steam railway with its glistening green locomotives that chug past with nostalgic precision. I knew that along one of the streets, tucked behind a cafe, was an actual model village, nested Russian doll like with its own miniatures of church and cottages and castle. (We visited the model village later, experiencing a strange shift of perspective from our tiny birds eye view, small and buffeted at the top of the castle tower, to towering ourselves over the replica castle at our feet.) Over the hills, black Ravens played on the wind gusts, riding them over the gorse and heather, and closer-too, a female Kestrel tacked past at eye level then angled back across the castle grounds below us; tawny, scalloped edged feathers caught the sunlight, her creator clearly inspired by hue and shadow and form of September bracken. I drank in all this, allowing it to satisfy the thirst my soul had for nature and beauty, that it was only as I allowed myself to relax into the holiday had I realised I so desperately need to quench. Dramatic, detailed, delicious, Dorset; demanding, but delightfully so.

Links:

The New Inn, Cerne Abbas
www.thenewinncerneabbas.co.uk

Palmers brewery (The New Inn is a Palmers Pub)
‘Copper’ is our new favourite cask ale

Cerne Abbas Brewery - we didn’t have time to visit, but sampled the ‘Juggling Jester’ ale in The Royal Oak, Cerne Abbas.
Brewery, Taproom, Outside Bar Hire, Private Parties, Cask Ale

Corfe Castle, visiting information
Corfe Castle - Opening Times, Prices and History