After a pretty darn good smorgasbord breakfast at the Royal Bath, we hit the road in the direction of Kingston Lacy, a 17th century stately home built by the Bankes family to replace their castle of Corfe, which had been destroyed by Oliver Cromwell after the Bankses had chosen the wrong side in the Civil War.  The old keys to Corfe Castle still exist, and we saw them on display at Kingston Lacy.  It’s a beautiful building with some fantastic art and furnishings.  Edward VII and Queen Alexandra stayed there.  There were a couple of excellent Egyptian artefacts in the back park, an obelisk and a sarcophagus. They had an interesting ‘tent’ room, painted and arranged to look like the interior of a tent.  Also a rare bust of Kaiser Willhelm II, which had been stored out of sight, understandably, for many decades.  

We had lunch in the restaurant, then headed just up the road to Badbury Rings, an iron age hill fort dating from around 800BC.  It also had some barrows on top going as far back as 3500BC.  We walked right around it and through the centre, soaking up the atmosphere.  Fantastic.  

After a bit of a sit-down we continued on to the aforementioned Corfe Castle, ruined former home of the Bankes family.  It is a particularly attractive looking ruin, situated on the top of a huge natural motte. The castle was virtually impregnable by virtue of this natural feature, and was only captured during the civil war because a traitor among the garrison let in enemy troops. We looked around it a fair bit, checking out the brilliant views of the surrounding countryside and of the village below.  You could get a good idea of the size and layout of the castle proper from the ruins.  Later we enjoyed a delicious Dorset Coffee, the scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream, with a fantastic view of the castle as a backdrop.  

Then it was on to Bindon Bottom, our B&B at West Lulworth. It was a truly gorgeous place, and we had the best room in the house, The Hardy Room, looking over the fields so reminiscent of Far from the Madding Crowd. We kicked back for a bit, then went for a look around the cove, a virtually circular little bay. Later we armed ourselves with some cheese, pate, crackers and a bottle of red and trekked up to the hills above the Durdle Door, and had dinner overlooking the coast as the sun went down.  It was a big climb but it was worth it for the remoteness and the beauty of the view. Very special evening.  It could have been Gabriel and Bathsheba up there.  We managed to make our way down before it got completely dark around 10.30pm, and hit the hay after a brilliant day.

Kingston Lacy wiki   Badbury Rings wiki   Corfe Castle wiki