The White Lion

Lewesdon Hill

A short, steep 2.6-mile round of an hour and a half up the highest hill in Dorset at 279 metres, through beech hangers to a wooded iron age enclosure on the summit with glimpsed views to the sea. About 180 metres of climb, on holloway, root-laced woodland path and a slippery greensand pull that is hard work in the wet. Start at the small National Trust car park on the lane between Broadwindsor and Stoke Abbott, free, with room for perhaps a dozen cars and no overflow at all. Sheep graze the fields below the wood so leads on the approach, the summit wood itself is unfenced from any road and good for a run, and there is no water on the hill.