The Blackmore vale path is a circular 75 mile path in Dorset that I discovered when looking for 4 day walks just after the covid-19 lockdown. We pushed the pace on this and ended up doing most of it in three days with some shortcuts (avoiding Blandford, Yeovil and Dorchester) but its probably a more pleasant 5-6 day walk.
75 mile circular route around Dorset
The main towns on route with train stations and decent bus links are Dorchester, Yeovil, Sherborne and Blandford so these would make for the best starting points.
This could easily be done walking from one B&B to the next. There are a few campsites on en route but it might be a little trickier to camp in official sites each night, but there are a fair few woodlands and farmers fields that could accommodate a wild camper if you set up late, packed up early and most importantly leave no trace. There are enough towns on route to pick up food in local shops near daily.
Maps - we used the OS Maps app on our phone and find it excellent (you can upload the GPX file to the app and follow it) but obviously the OS paper maps are also great and a handy back up.
Possible Itinerary (6 days) - approx distances in miles
Blandford to Sturminster Newton 13
Sturminster Newton to Sherborne 15
Yeovil to Cerne Abbas 15
Cerne Abbas to Dorchester 10
Dorchester to Milton Abbas 15
Milton Abbas to Blandford 7
Skipping Blandford & Yeovil (5 days - 65 miles)
Dorchester to Milton Abbas 15 miles
Milton Abbas to Sturminster Newton 12 1/2 miles (skipping blandford)
Sturminster newton to Sherborne 15 miles
Sherborne to Cerne Abbas (skipping Yeovil , going through Bradford Abbas) - 18 miles
Cerne Abbas to Dorchester - 10 miles
Helpful planning distances (very rough distance from place to place)
Tolpuddle
Milton Abbas 6
Winterborne Stickland 3
Blandford 4
Okeford Fitzpaine 9
Sturminster Newton 4
Stalbridge 7
Sherborne 8
Yeovil 5 1/2
yetminster 5
Cerne Abbas 10
Dorchester 10
Tolpuddle 9
Below is a rough guide to our walk detailing some of the facilities in each town, we walked anti-clockwise
Facilities
- No formal accommodation but a few airbnbs
- No shop
- River if you need water and are happy to treat it
It's a bit of an uphill slog through the village but the village cafe, shop, and pub might slow you down (unfortunately for us, all closed because of covid). The pub does accommodation when it's open and we saw a few signs for B&Bs. If looking for water there is a reservoir here but it's seems heavily guarded by fishermen.
From Okeford Fitzpaine its nearly 4 miles to Sturminster Newton, initially climbing a gentle rise and then back down into the town. This is an old market town with a selection of shops, that recognises its connection with the Blackmore Vale. It's apparently been around since 1272 and there is a 15th century over the river that Thomas Hardy once wrote about. A lot of this walk is around where Hardy lived and wrote about. There are plentiful facilities here - a bakery, we can highly recommend the butcher come deli as well as pubs, a fish and chip shop, indian, pizza takeaway, co-op. The Swan Inn provides accommodation.
From Sturminster Newton we found it a boring slog on roads to Stalbridge, around 7 miles away, these were quiet but remained tiring on the feet and if we'd planned it better we'd have probably used OS maps to utilise more local footpaths. Stalbridge is a small place, but not too small to have its own flag (!), a nice church and some thatched houses. There is a post office selling a few supplies here but little else. Try airbnb for possible accommodation.
Around 2 miles from Stalbridge is Stalbridge Weston a small collection of houses and one of the most impassable paths that we encountered on our walk. Around an hour of nettle whacking and swearing later we got back onto a clear footpath, but for around 500 metres we expended a lot of energy clearing and getting stung by various forms of overgrown pointy shrub. We suggest avoiding this path if you possibly can (we would have done, except for having navigated some of the nettles, we didn't wish to retrace our steps and give them the satisfaction of stinging us a second time).
8 miles from Stalbridge lies Sherborne. This is another larger market town, with an impressive castle to the east with a well maintained deer park adjacent but also lots of threatening signs telling you to stay on the path. Sherborne has everything you might need - accommodation, food (we can highly recommend Ecco-gelato for ice cream, even though it was very cold whilst we were eating them) and a big Sainsburys. It looks like a town that specialises in art, antiques and cafes and would be a nice place to mill about for an afternoon. It's Abbey is also quite grand and it apparently has its market on a Thursday.
From Sherborne it's around 5 and a half miles to Yeovil. This is a large town, that creeps into Somerset, with good transport links to Bristol and London via rail so a potentially good place to start, It has all facilities that you could want. We skipped Yeovil as we didn't fancy the road walking and instead cut through the cute village of Bradford Abbas. Abbas is Latin for Abbot and why many of the places on this route are suffixed Abbas.
The next place of interest is Yetminster - as always is has a nice church, the whole village is made from yellow sandstone and it also has a pub -the white hart, a few accommodation options and a SPAR. Its about 5 miles from Yeovil.
From Yetminster you get to the small village of Leigh, this was a trudge again on roads and in future I would have avoided these by using other footpaths maked on OS maps. Leigh has a post office / village store. Where we did try and take a footpath east from Leigh, there was a sign saying there wasn't a bridge allowing access to Hermitage so we elected to do more boring road walking. The road gradually ascends and then you get onto a track with fine views over Minterne Magna that has a fine country house and gardens and down into the Cerne valley.
On top of 'giant' hill there is a campsite and there is also a glamping place down in Cerne Abbas itself. We were slightly disappointed that altough the path takes you directly below the cerne abbas giant you get a very poor view at his feet and you'd get a better one from the other side of the valley. Cerne Abbas itself obviously benefitted from giant tourism and was one of the only places we saw people all day. It also has a tearooms (a very welcome stop and opportunity to eat out - the first proper time we did since covid lockdown), shops, 3 pubs and potential accommodation. Whilst some claim the giant is 1500 years old, the first mention of it is from 1694, and his giant member may have only become out of proportion around 100 years ago. Cerne Abbas is about 10 miles from Yetminster.
The path then takes a nice course adjacent to the river Cerne, apssing adjacent to Nether Cerne and Godmanstone, before heading out into open rolling farmland with walks around field borders and good views for many miles - including to Dorchester. Dorchester is about 10 miles from Cerne Abbas and makes another good base for a night, with plentiful restaurants, shops and several accomodation options.
The final segment of path goes through Puddletown Forest, where Hardy's cottage is located and it's then around 9 miles to Tolpuddle, which has another cute collection of thatched houses and a nice church but very few facilities.
Feel free to get in touch if you want any more information about this slightly esoteric Dorset walk!