Starting at the blue coastal waters of Swanage Bay, pass colourful beach huts and wooden groynes to climb through the residential estates to Ballard Down. Pass a 17th century farm, built from stone stolen from Corfe Castle, and weave through the trees to the base of the steep slopes. In the company of views over Swanage Bay to the Needles, follow the path under the shadow of an obelisk. Meet a country lane that slices through the hills and continue along the Purbeck Way while ancient monuments top the peaks. Drop down in to the valley passing the cows of Knitson Farm to Windmill Hill, scarred with little quarried holes. Return to the coastal town of Swanage, past the rustic Godlingston Manor, through growing allotments and skimming a celebrity’s seaside bolthole.
Distance: 6miles/9.5km
Time: 3 hours
Ability: Easy.
Max height: 400ft
Min height: 0ft
Total climb: 585ft
Terrain: Tracks, paths, fields and roads.
Start Point: North Beach Car Park – Payment Required. (Postcode: BH19 1PL, Grid Reference: SZ029799, What Three Words: mailbox.concluded.outright).
Map: OS Explorer OL15 Purbeck and South Dorset
How to get there: North Beach Car Park is placed on the corner of Bonfields Avenue and De Moulham Road.
Dogs: On leads where livestock is present and in accordance with any notices on the walk and The Countryside Code. Dogs allowed on North and South Beach all year round but not during the summer months on Main Beach.
Refreshments: A number of options can be found in Swanage
Toilets: A set of public toilets are just as you leave the beach on the walk.
Neighbouring Walks: Old Harry’s Rocks, Durlston, Worth Matravers, Woolgarston, Langton Matravers, Rempstone and Studland.
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Really great views over Swanage in the early part of the walk and then some fabulous hill/valley combos. We took a short cut about half of the way in, so we’ll save that section for another day.
May we make a couple of suggestions:
First, it is very rare that you describe your walks as anything other than ‘Easy’. No doubt you are using some national criteria for this. However, some of your walks are much less easy than others. Today, for example, from the start of the walk to the base of the first hill range is quite a long and tough climb. I know you show the walk profile in your guide, but you might consider amending ‘Easy’ in such cases to ‘Easy, but with some prolonged steep climbs’ or something of that kind.
Second, we got lost at the beginning. We were looking for a ‘pedestrianised alley’ to turn left into after the carpark. It would have helped if you had named this ie ‘turn into Clifton Road’ as we ignored that one (it didn’t seem to be a pedestrianised alley) and took the next left turn (which did!) and then headed right at the bottom not realising it was not Uliwell Road). IN general, it’s quite hard to use OS maps when you are in towns – so if you added a little road map to the streets followed in Swanage with the route indicated in your otherwise excellent guide it would have helped us avoid walking halfway into Swanage right at the start (although this was actually really enjoyable with the sea and waves…)
Thanks for creating plenty of walks around our neck of the woods in East Dorset. We don’t always have time to travel out to the more westerly end of the county…
David
Thank you for this, glad you enjoyed it! I agree with the towns – not my forte! But I will take your advice in both the mappage and difficulty rating – all in prep for 2025!
Swanage Paul Nash
“ During the years in the mid-1930s that Paul and Margaret Nash lived and worked in and around Swanage, the town was still gathered to the south of the Bay, sheltered behind the breakwater and dominated by the seafront with its gondolier pier, modest, but well-maintained public gardens, bandstands and public shelters. Rows of sturdy terrace buildings, built of brick but with local stone detailing, were built in a succession of schemes by local firms. The Nash’s lived in one such project at The Parade, a terrace of fine houses facing the sea, and constructed by entrepreneurs who had made their fortune as building contractors in London”
PaulnashDorset website