With the 917 spruced up, we considered spending time on the North Wales coast with a base in Anglesey. We picked two sites that looked good for biking, but neither had space.  So we looked at Dorset as we were looking for proximity to the Bristol area where we would be storing the 917. We found a small site that would take us for six nights. On the way down we stopped at a pub restaurant called The Oak in Upton Snodsbury, courtesy of BritStops.  We confess that we had not only afternoon tea but a lovely dinner.  (https://www.theoakuptonsnodsbury.co.uk/ ) Well worth a return visit and yes, there really is a place called Upton Snodsbury.

The campground in Hazelbury Brian (another real name), REALLY is in the country, and we drove endless small country roads to reach it!  At least it seemed that way!  It turned out to be a lovely site with beautiful views of a large pond, sheep in a distant field (of course), and excellent facilities, including a much sought after washing machine and dryer.  This was a big plus as we were preparing the camper for storage and we needed to store clean clothes and sheets.

As is often the case, we had a list of places we wanted to visit in Dorset; Corfe Castle, the steam railway, Durdle Door, and the Tank Museum. With that list, we SHOULD have realized that all of the major roads in Dorset would run east/west and we should therefore pick a campsite well in the south. Instead, we had chosen a small site well in the north of the county. One result was long “exciting” drives down single track roads which seemed to take hours to cover very short distances.

We made the Tank Museum, in Bovington, our first destination.  The Tank Museum is located on the edge of the Royal Tank Regiment HQ and it was most interesting to follow a tank down the road, especially one with “L” plate for learner attached to the rear! Fred had always wanted to visit this museum and it proved quite fascinating.  The Tank Museum is best known to (normal) people, that is, people who are not armor nuts, for its support of Brad Pitt’s movie “Fury.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(2014_film) The movie may or may not break new ground in the war movie genre, but it is distinguished by the appearance of the only German “Tiger” tank that can still be driven. Thus, unlike most war movies, the tanks in the movie were near period perfect, as opposed to the modern tanks which are typically used in movies and look “wrong” to hard core history fans. 

We did not try to take a lot of photos inside as you really have to visit for yourself. The displays are excellent and provide some fascinating background on the very specific problems that tanks were invented to solve (trenches, barbed wire, machine guns), the challenges (why not use a wheeled vehicle, how do you keep the tracks from coming off?), and the solutions that were found and how they evolved. The museum itself is very high quality, with superb exhibits, including cut aways, and talking mannequins, complete with class and regionally correct accents! A surprising stand out was the tour of the World War I (The Great War) trenches, where you walk from the British to the German side. It was a most evocative recreation of the trenches and experiences of the soldiers.  Unfortunately the more modern Cold War Displays were closed for a private event. A definite must see. (https://tankmuseum.org/) YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thetankmuseum/videos

On the way home, Denise wanted to see the Durdle Door, a rock formation on the coast.  There was unfortunately a mass of cars and campers parked along the narrow road and we missed the sign for the car park.  To be honest with the number of people there, it was probably full anyway.  So we gave that up and will visit in the future.

But the other result of choosing our campsite was the serendipitous discovery of an ancient mill, a rare medieval “packhorse bridge,” and a wonderful old church. While doing the laundry, we examined the Ordinance Survey map on the wall. Once we located ourselves on the map, our attention was drawn to the word “bridge” in gothic print. We discovered that the gothic print meant a medieval site and we started digging on the internet. We found a wonderful web post by “Tess of the Vale” and resolved to explore. (https://tessofthevale.com/2021/04/30/fifehead-neville/) Some other folks at the campsite talked about the old mill at Sturminster Newton so we fired up the bikes and we were off!

A volunteer was manning the mill and was in charge of grinding the flour that day and he proved a most knowledgable and excellent guide.  He showed us around and explained the link between the mill, which was originally a fulling mill and made swanskin waterproof cloth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanskin_cloth) and the fishing industry of Nova Scotia, which fascinated us after our visit to Nova Scotia – we saw both sides of the exchange. We tend to think of mills as places to grind grain, but, in reality, they were medieval power plants that could drive anything from saws (saw mills), to trip hammers (fulling mill), to, of course, grinding mills.

We then headed for Fifehead Neville along the Dark Lane, a lane with trees from both sides touching overhead. 

Parts of it were so narrow that we had to dismount and pull our bikes (and ourselves) into the hedges in order to let a normal car pass.  As we cycled along we suddenly saw the medieval bridge for which we were looking, the pack horse bridge.  We cycled right by it!  A pack horse bridge is built without parapets so that the cargo on the backs of pack animals would not be squashed and damaged. 

We also enjoyed a visit to All Saints Church in Fifehead Neville. Fifehead is an old name, meaning “five hides” and Neville is a modification of a French family name. Many villages in the area are named Fifehead “Something,” and all date back to the Conquest. All Saints Church is impressively old. The population of Fifehead Neville was 147 in 2011 – not a huge town.

There are two modern war memorial plaques in the church. Not much information on Private Rolls. He may have been seconded to a New Zealand engineer group, digging mines under the German lines. Cecil Collins was almost certainly lost in the sinking of HMS Charybdis off the Channel Isles. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Charybdis_(88)?fbclid=IwAR0o1WL3dcg0-8Hxbx1ZNkV0xEpYbr5wWfqxRn7xysO_zKgEouTo6sXxNBM)

Our final visit in Dorset was to take the steam train from Nordern to Swanage and then back to Corfe Castle.  It was a much larger engine than most tourist steam train engines and pulled several carriages. 

We picked a nice sunny day for this and enjoyed a walk along the beach at Swanage.

Then it was back on the train to visit the Corfe Castle ruins.  The ruins are a fair climb up from the village.

The views from the summit of the ruins were spectacular, both distant views and the views of the village of Corfe below.  The Castle was built by William the Conqueror and sold off by Elizabeth the First. The castle withstood some amazing sieges during English civil wars.

The castle was finally “slighted” by the parliamentarians but it is interesting to note that even with tons of explosives, the walls did not disintegrate, but rather fell as large, intact sections. Some amazing masonry.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfe_Castle

Tired and thirsty, we returned to the station and took the train back to Nordern to pick up the 917.

Then it was back to the campsite. The Cerne Abbas giant will have to await our next trip! Finally, we dropped the 917 off at its storage site and caught the train towards Heathrow and thence a flight back to the US.