Discover a collection of holiday cottages, farmhouses, barn conversions, and glamping pods, set on working farms within 10 miles of the coast in Dorset. A farm stay by the coast gives you the best of both worlds – laid-back rural charm and beautiful countryside with easy access to coastal walks, beach days, watersports, and stunning sea views.
Dorset has one of the most geologically extraordinary coastlines in the world. The Jurassic Coast, 95 miles of cliff, cove, and beach running from Exmouth in Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, sharing the status with the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon, recognised for its unique geology and the 185 million years of Earth’s history visible in its cliffs. Farm stays along this coast put you in a landscape of fantastic natural drama with the chalk downland running to the cliff edge, ancient field systems above the sea, and a shoreline that rewards the curious visitor with fossils, wildlife, and some of the finest walking in southern England.
Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch carved by the sea over 140 million years, is Dorset’s most photographed landmark, and the beach beneath it, reached by a steep path from the clifftops, is one of the most beautiful in England, while adjacent Lulworth Cove, a naturally curved harbour of white pebble beach enclosed by chalk cliffs, is sheltered enough for swimming in most conditions. Chesil Beach is a 17-mile bank of pebbles running from Portland to West Bay, and one of the great geological features of the English coast, backed by the largest tidal lagoon in Britain. For a traditional seaside experience head to Swanage with golden sand, a Victorian pier, and a steam railway that brings you in from Norden in style.
Dorset has some of the best places on the south coast for coasteering, with Lulworth Outdoors offering guided sessions along the Jurassic Coast, involving climbing cliffs, jumping into the sea, and swimming through caves, while the sheltered waters of Poole Harbour are excellent for sailing, kayaking, and paddleboarding. Kimmeridge Bay, a marine conservation zone with rocky ledges and clear water is one of the best snorkelling sites in the south of England.
The Fleet Lagoon, behind Chesil Beach, supports a rare colony of breeding little terns as well as dunlins, sanderlings, and populations of wintering wildfowl. Portland Bill is one of the most important sites for migratory birds on the south coast as the first landfall for birds arriving from the continent and attracts rare species throughout the spring and autumn migration seasons. It is also an excellent spot for spotting dolphins, acting as a funnel for marine life moving through the Channel.
Dorset is the fossil hunting capital of Britain. Charmouth Beach, just east of Lyme Regis, is the best beach for beginners where ammonites, ichthyosaur bones, and belemnites wash out of the cliffs after rain and can be collected from the foreshore without any tools or training. The Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre runs guided fossil walks that are worth booking. Nearby, the Etches Collection Museum nearby holds some of the finest locally found fossils in the world.
The South West Coast Path runs the entire length of Dorset’s coast, and sections of it including the circular route around the Isle of Portland, and the walk from Studland to Old Harry Rocks, are among the most spectacular in southern England. The walk along the top of the cliffs between Charmouth and Golden Cap, the highest point on the south coast of England at 627 feet, gives views towards Start Point in Devon and on clear days the edge of Dartmoor.
Mary Anning, born in Lyme Regis in 1799, was one of the most important fossil hunters in history and her discoveries of ichthyosaur and plesiosaur skeletons in the cliffs above the town transformed scientific understanding of prehistoric life and laid the groundwork for the theory of extinction. She was a working class woman in a field dominated by wealthy men, was largely uncredited during her lifetime, but is now recognised as one of the most significant scientists of the nineteenth century. Lyme Regis Museum tells her story, and the beach where she worked is still producing extraordinary fossils more than two hundred years later.
