Kimmeridge Bay

A 4.2-mile loop of two and a quarter hours from the village down to the black shale ledges of Kimmeridge Bay, up to the Georgian folly of Clavell Tower and along the cliff before returning by field paths. Grass and stone tracks with 190 metres of climb, and rock pools at low tide that are the best in Dorset. Park at the Smedmore Estate toll car park above Gaulter Gap, which charges a fee per car at a manned kiosk in season and has room for perhaps a hundred; the village lanes are unsuitable. The bay is a marine nature reserve where dogs must stay off the fossil ledges when seals are hauled out, the low cliff edges are soft shale that crumbles, and the Clavell Tower field is grazed.