Walk · Dorset

Dancing Ledge from Spyway

Langton Matravers · BH19 3HG

2.8MILES

1h 30mON FOOT

140mCLIMB

Out & backSHAPE

Off-road 92% 8% shares tarmac with cars

Field & moor path 72%Lane & track 20%Road with traffic 8%

Our drawing of the route — the shape of the walk, not a navigation aid. Carry OS Explorer on the hill. Off-lead information here is what walkers reported or what signage allows — never our advice. Whether and when a dog is off the lead is the owner’s decision and legal responsibility; keep dogs under control near livestock and follow signs on the day.

Starts at

National Trust Spyway car park, Durnford Drove, Langton Matravers BH19 3HG

Parking

National Trust, free to members, about 40 spaces on grass; the lane in is single track with no passing places and the car park fills by mid-morning at weekends

Directions to the start →

Two and three quarter miles down and back up to the quarried limestone shelf at Dancing Ledge, an hour and a half with 140 metres of climb, on close-cropped sheep pasture and a rough stepped descent through the cliff face. Start at the National Trust Spyway car park off Durnford Drove, free to members, small at around forty spaces and reached down a narrow lane with almost nowhere to turn. Sheep and cattle graze the fields the whole way, and the National Trust asks for dogs on leads through them; the ledge itself is a flat rock platform with a tidal pool, spectacular but wave-swept, and the drop to it from the cliff path is a place to have a dog on a short lead.

THE SMALL PRINTSheep and cattle graze all the Spyway fields, so dogs must be on a lead between the car park and the cliff. The descent to Dancing Ledge is a steep unprotected scramble and the ledge is washed by waves in any swell.

House rules, decoded

Livestock — leads on

REGION · DORSET

GRID · 50.5993, -2.0040

SOURCE · HTTPS://WWW.NATIONALTRUST.ORG.UK/VISIT/DORSET/SPYWAY/SOUTH-PURBECK-CLIFFS-WALK

Dancing Ledge from Spyway

House rules, decoded

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