The Jurassic Coast: Lyme Regis to Old Harry Rocks

Editor's note

Four nights in West Dorset. At Lyme Regis, hunt fossils with a guide on Monmouth Beach and Church Cliff, where Mary Anning found the first ichthyosaur skeleton in 1811, visit the museum on the site of the Anning home and walk the Cobb. Climb Golden Cap from Seatown, about forty minutes, to the highest point within a mile of the south coast. At Abbotsbury, walk among the mute swans of the only managed swannery in the world; they are fed at noon and four. See Hardy's birthplace at Higher Bockhampton and Max Gate, the house he designed in Dorchester, then the Cerne Abbas Giant, a chalk man 55m long.

Editor's note

Three nights on Purbeck. Walk the cliff path from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door, the natural limestone arch, and see the Fossil Forest ledge by the cove, tree stumps about 135 million years old. The Etches Collection at Kimmeridge shows Jurassic marine fossils from the ledges of the bay, and Tyneham, abandoned to the army in 1943, can be walked when the Lulworth ranges are open. Climb through the leaning towers of Corfe Castle, slighted by Parliament in 1646, and ride the Swanage Railway steam train. Take the boat from Poole Quay or Sandbanks to Brownsea for red squirrels, avocets and terns. Finish on the cliff top above Old Harry.