By Anne-Marie Edwards

It felt like a long time coming, but finally spring has arrived. To us that means wild flowers, walking and wide-open spaces. To celebrate the launch of their new book, Dorset Year Round Walks, Countryside Books has supplied us with a guide to some classic walking routes within easy reach of Dorchester.

First on the list is Abbotsbury, and the guided walk you find here has been reproduced just as it appears in the book. Below that you’ll find two further recommendations for favourite routes in the area.

1. Best for a spring walk: Abbotsbury

Fast facts

Route: 3 miles

Distance from Dorchester: 9 miles, 20 minutes

Terrain: Easy, apart from one short climb

Starting point: Abbotsbury Village car park

Sat Nav: DT3 4JL

Refreshments: various cafés and tearooms in Abbotsbury, including a café at the Swannery

There is so much to enjoy as you follow the route of this walk that you might need a whole day to ensure you don’t miss anything! The route starts in Abbotsbury, a beautiful and historic village set comfortably in a sheltered hollow of the coastal downs at the western end of the Fleet, an eight-mile-long tidal lagoon. The houses and cottages are built of golden stone and many date from the 16th and 17th centuries with wooden casement windows and reed-thatched roofs. Benedictine monks founded an abbey here in the 11th century and among the remains of the abbey are the massive tithe barn and the chapel of St Catherine on the top of Chapel Hill. The monks established a swannery on the reedy shores of the Fleet, an ideal situation protected from south-westerly gales by the Chesil Bank. After 600 years, the swannery still flourishes under the protection of the Strangways family. These can all be visited on this rewarding walk.

The walk

1. From the car park return to the road, the B3157.

2. Turn left to walk through the village. The road is now called Rodden Row and is lined with shops and cottages.

3. At the T-junction, turn right up Market Street past the 18th-century Ilchester Arms on your left. Follow the road round to the left past Strangways Hall.

4. Opposite Red Lane, just before the Post Office, look carefully for a finger post on the left indicating, among other signs, your destination, Chapel Hill. Turn left along the track with a hedge and low wall on your right. The village is left behind and you are instantly in the countryside. Occasionally through the trees you catch glimpses of St Catherine’s Chapel on the top of Chapel Hill.

5. As you reach the foot of Chapel Hill there are three possible paths. Take the middle path and keep ahead, following the sign on the finger post for St Catherine’s Chapel. Go through a squeaky gate and climb the hillside up a clear path to the chapel.

6. The chapel is well worth the climb! It was built by monks in the late 14th century as a seamark and chantry for sailors. The walls are four feet thick! It was too useful to be destroyed and so survived the Dissolution. The views from this exposed hilltop are spectacular in all directions – inland over Abbotsbury cupped in the downs, over the Fleet to Portland and west over Lyme Bay. Walk round to the seaward side of the chapel. The route now runs down the south-east side of Chapel Hill. There is no clear path at this point but go through a gate in the fence surrounding the chapel and you will see a finger post on the corner of the fence on your left. Follow the direction downhill for the Swannery. About halfway down the hill look down to a wood and continue aiming for the right-hand edge. Just before you reach the wood there is a seat. Look ahead for two large stones a little to your left indicating your way to the Swannery. Go down the hill to the first stone and turn left to follow the arrows to the Swannery past the second stone.

7. Keep ahead over two stiles to the corner of Grove Lane near the swannery buildings.

8. In the shop you can buy your tickets to visit the swannery, the only colony of nesting mute swans where you can follow pathways among the birds. In May and June hundreds of cygnets play around the paths and in the pools and creeks. After your visit retrace your steps to Grove Lane and keep ahead to meet New Barn Road near the tithe barn.

9. Turn left along New Barn Road. The former abbey’s tithe barn is on your right overlooking one of the abbey’s fish ponds. It is a huge building only part of which is thatched. Inside there is a fascinating museum housing agricultural implements used by our ancestors and a children’s farm where under-eights can cuddle guinea pigs, race toy tractors and bottle-feed the baby lambs.

10. When the road kinks left, turn right following a green sign indicating the footpath to the village car park, to walk along the northern side of the pond. Turn left uphill to the church. Inside, look out for the two bullet holes made by Cromwell’s men during the Civil War. Leave the church by the south porch and follow the path back to the village car park where the walk began.

Abbotsbury Swannery

The whole family will enjoy a visit to Abbotsbury Swannery. Children can help to feed the swans at mass feeding times, and listen to a microphone commentary by the swanherd. Among many attractions are pedal go-karts and a giant swan maze. Frankie the barn owl gives a fascinating flying display from May to June and July to September.

The swannery is open every day from March to October from 10am to 5pm. The Swannery Café is open from 10am to 4.30pm. The site is fully accessible for disabled visitors.

2. Best for seeing Hardy Country: Puddletown & Yellowham wood

Fast facts

Route: 6 miles

Distance from Dorchester: 4.5 miles, 12 minutes

Terrain: Undulating paths, but generally firm underfoot

Starting point: Roadside parking beside St Mary’s Church in Puddletown

Sat Nav: DT2 8SN

Refreshments: The Blue Vinny Pub near Puddletown and the café at Hardy’s Birthplace Visitor’s Trust

If you’ve even a passing interest in the novels of Thomas Hardy, this walk through some of the countryside which inspired him, to the cottage where he was born, is a must.

The route starts in Puddletown, a small village close to his home, which he called “Weatherbury” in Far From the Madding Crowd. Start at the church, head west, across the A35 and follow sheltered footpaths as they gradually climb the downs and then descend through Yellowham Wood to Hardy’s Cottage.

Hardy calls the wood “Yalbury” and on the way you pass the keeper’s cottage, the home of Keeper Day in his novel Under the Greenwood Tree. The route returns to the village through Puddletown Forest.

3. Best for dramatic coastal scenery: Ringstead Bay

Fast facts

Route: 4.5 miles

Distance from Dorchester: 8 miles, 18 minutes

Terrain: Undulating paths and tracks, with one steep climb

Starting point: National Trust car park at South Down

Sat Nav: DT2 8NQ

Refreshments: The Smugglers Inn, in nearby Osmington Mills

This is an exciting walk in one of the most remote and spectacular areas of Dorset’s Jurassic coast.

From the National Trust car park, follow a ridge of high downland with dramatic seaward views. The path then runs downhill past a tiny chapel, St. Catherine’s-by-the-Sea, perched on a grassy hillside, to meet the Coast Path. Head west along the crest of Burning Cliff. The cliff marks the western end of a huge landslip of vertical boulders and crumbling vegetation covering 115 acres. It derives its name from the years between 1826 and 1830 when it burned almost continuously owing to the oxidisation of oil-bearing shale in its surface.

You then follow the path to Ringstead village and beach and see the mounds and embankments of a deserted medieval village before returning to the car park.

This is a walk for any time of year but at quiet times in winter it is particularly enjoyable.

These walks and many more appear in full in Dorset Year Round Walks, published by Countryside Books. Another local walking book by Countryside Books is Dorset – A Dog Walker’s Guide.

Dorchester Life readers get a 10% discount on both titles until the end of July. Visit the website countrysidebooks.co.uk/collections/dorset and enter the code DORCHESTER10 at checkout. Or call 01635 43816 and quote DORCHESTER10