Easter Sunday

On Easter Sunday 2025 I cycled through West Dorset.

My plan, appropriate for the day, was to visit a few tiny and out of the way chapels. Along the way I climbed over the Dorset downs, encountered a fightback against an environmental disaster and made a return visit to one of my favourite places.

Arthurian connections

My first stop was at the tiny chapel of Buckland Ripers just outside Weymouth. It is a modest affair built in 1655 after a fire destroyed an earlier medieval building. It is dedicated to St Nicholas. The earlier church was possibly built by a relative of the author of Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Mallory.

From there I rode out to Abbotsbury taking the quieter coast road via Rodden and Abbotsbury Swannery. The Swannery was part of the abbey that gives the village its name. The swans were farmed by the monks for the dinner table! It is now the largest managed colony of mute swans in the world.

After Abbotsbury I cycled up the hill to the west of the village. It’s a steep climb that goes on for some time but the views from the top are spectacular. On the way up I passed another cyclist. He had just taken up cycling and at the moment he was ticking off various iconic climbs in the county – this was the second on his list. At the top of the hill I left the coast road and headed along a quiet lane that climbed over Wears Hill and into the valley beyond.

A promise to the future

I was looking for a place I had not visited for a long time. Another small chapel but this time all that remains is one wall. I recall it being hidden away beneath a canopy of trees but as I walked through the woods I discovered an environmental disaster had hit the woodland. Ash dieback had hit and the owners of the wood had taken the decision to remove the dying trees and replace them. The remains of the chapel now stood in isolation save for ranks of plastic tubes protecting young trees that would replace the ones that had died.

As I left the woodland and climbed back on the bicycle I promised to myself that I would come back one day when the new trees, a variety chosen to withstand disease, had filled the space once more.

The valley of stones

After leaving the chapel I took the bridleway that dropped me down into the Bride Valley. At some point though I would have to climb again. Above the village of Portesham close to the monument to Thomas Masterman Hardy I paid a return visit to one of my favourite places – the valley of stones. The stones were left scattered following the retreat of the ice age and they have remained there since although some of been moved. Recent evidence has suggested that some of them had been as tools by the early stone age inhabitants of the area.

One more chapel

I was on my return journey but I had one last chapel to visit. This was another one tucked away from the road. It is in the tiny hamlet of Corton on the road between Portesham and Upwey. Inside I noted a palm cross propped on a window ledge, a reminder of Palm Sunday the previous weekend.

The chapel here is dedicated to St Bartholomew. The current building was constructed in the late nineteenth on the base of a much earlier chapel. To reach it you have go through a cut in the ridge that runs alongside the road.

Back home

So that was my journey. It was a dull and overcast day (it was a bank holiday weekend!) but that didn’t put me off the cycle ride. Whenever I visit Dorset I always try to get out the bicycle with my camera. It is my favourite way of exploring my favourite place.

To view the route I took check it out on Komoot.