Photograph: Kimmeridge Bay by Graham Horn, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dark shale ledges and rock pools under Clavell Tower, the best snorkelling and rockpooling bay in Dorset and a marine nature reserve. Dorset Council lists it as open to dogs all year round. Reached through the Smedmore Estate toll road from Kimmeridge village.
Boat on the Bay is a place to eat in Kimmeridge. It is listed here so you know it is there, but we have not yet established whether dogs are welcome — so there is no verdict on this page and no stamp. If it is your business, claim the page and tell us, and we will stamp it.
Clavell's Cafe is a place to eat in Kimmeridge. It is listed here so you know it is there, but we have not yet established whether dogs are welcome — so there is no verdict on this page and no stamp. If it is your business, claim the page and tell us, and we will stamp it.
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.
Nobody has written one for Kimmeridge Bay. If you have been with the dog, you would be the first — and the first review is the one everybody reads.
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