Haven Hide to seek
HAVEN is opening all its holiday parks from July to a limited number of guests but with reduced facilities. All bars, restaurants, pools, play areas and entertainment will be closed.
Called Haven Hideaway, the offer includes a holiday home on the coast and facilities such as takeaway food options, minimarkets, launderettes and long stretches of beach.
ON the map, it doesn’t look remotely like an island but the Isle of Purbeck, a wedge of Dorset west of Poole Harbour, has everything, from castles to beaches, steam trains to cliff walks. Plus, Old Harry Rocks – and he really does.
Old Harry The Jurassic Coast
Compared with the concrete carpeting of the coastline to the east of Poole Harbour, the lump of land from Studland to Kimmeridge is suddenly remarkably wild, rearing up like a Jurassic beast. It has long been known for smugglers and shipwrecks and is riddled with one-man-and-his-dad limestone quarries.
The 95-mile Unesco-registered Jurassic Coast begins here, at Old Harry Rocks, and runs all the way to Exmouth in east Devon. The Rocks are chalk stacks and cliffs, counterparts to the Isle of Wight’s Needles, themselves visible across the water. Old Harry is also the beginning of the 630-mile South West Coast Path, which goes all the way around Land’s End.
Towering ruin Corfe Castle
You know you are entering a different world when the ruins of 11th-century Corfe Castle rear up beside the road heading to Purbeck, topping its own 55 metre high hill. Its first stone was laid more than 1,000 years ago and its main tower was built for William the Conqueror’s son.
The castle was involved in the English Civil War but the local Bankes family chose to remain loyal to the king so were on the losing side.
The reason the castle is the ruin it is today is not through war damage but because of the attempts made by Cromwell’s men to demolish it once it had been handed over. Deep holes were packed with gunpowder to bring the ramparts crashing down, resulting in the crazy angles we see today. Happily, the village below, which originally grew up to service the castle, is still neat and tidy. See nationaltrust.org.uk.
Vintage seaside Swanage
Purbeck’s main town, Swanage, is part Victorian seaside resort, part retirement home, part sanctuary for alternative lifestylers. And there’s whimsical shopping and plenty of opportunities for Eccles cakes.
It has a classic sandy beach but without the classic promenade and its pier is run by a trust that charges for strolling, a wonderfully old-fashioned idea. Also wonderfully old-fashioned is the steam-hauled Swanage railway, which runs a 25-minute journey inland between Swanage station and Norden, with a stop at Corfe Castle.
This heritage route is still carefully maintained in the livery of the Southern Railway but is now carrying more passengers as a private railway than it did when it was British Rail. See swanagerailway.co.uk.
Famous whisper Studland
The softer side lies to the north of Swanage, where chalk downlands run down to the sea. Here the sheltered Studland Bay is a place of beaches, grasslands and nature reserves.
The National Trust-run Knoll beach has immaculate sand and dunes and a variety of watersports. This part of Purbeck is the only place that can get busy when beach-goers flood across on the nearby chain ferry from
The best walk in Purbeck is from the quarrymen’s village of Worth Matravers to the 11th-century St Aldhelm’s Chapel, next to the rentable Coastguard Cottages on St Aldhelm’s Head. See holidaycottages.co.uk.
The wind and the view will take your breath away and the vaulted-roofed chapel has massively thick walls with just a little gun slot of a window to let the light in. From here, head