Southern England: Stonehenge, the New Forest and the Jurassic Coast

London to Avebury and Salisbury

Central London to Avebury, then south across the Wiltshire downs to Salisbury

• Lunch at Avebury and a welcome dinner in Salisbury
• Nuit : Salisbury
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Après-midi

Lunch, at about 1 pm, is a sit-down meal at a village pub. In the afternoon we cross the downs, about 60 km and an hour and a quarter, and reach Salisbury by about 4 pm.

Soir

Settle in, then join your guide for an easy evening stroll through the Cathedral Close and out to the river meadows, where the spire rises over the water. At 7:30 pm we sit down together to a welcome dinner in the city centre.

Compris

• Pick-up at a central London meeting point
• Avebury stone circle, the henge bank and the West Kennet Avenue with your guide
• Sit-down lunch at a village pub in Avebury
• Evening walk through the Cathedral Close and the river meadows
• Welcome dinner in Salisbury

Activités en option

• The Alexander Keiller Museum at Avebury

Stonehenge early, then the cathedral and Magna Carta

Salisbury to Stonehenge and back, then the Cathedral Close

• Petit-déjeuner
• Nuit : Salisbury
• Environ 45 min de route

Matin

Where we have secured a Stone Circle Access slot, English Heritage's small-group visits outside normal opening hours, we leave Salisbury around dawn and walk in among the stones themselves before the site opens to day visitors, a place you otherwise see only from the rope line. Where no slot is available on your dates, we are at the gate for the first timed entry, about 9:30, before the coaches arrive. Either way your guide explains how the circle was built and rebuilt over centuries, from the first earthwork about 5,000 years ago to the great sarsens raised around 2500 BC. Back in Salisbury, we visit the cathedral late morning with a guided tour: built mostly between 1220 and 1258, it has the tallest spire in Britain, at 123 m, and in the Chapter House one of the four surviving original copies of Magna Carta of 1215.

Après-midi

The afternoon is free.

Compris

• Stonehenge: Stone Circle Access inside the circle where booked, otherwise the first timed entry, with the visitor centre exhibition
• Salisbury Cathedral with a guided tour
• Magna Carta in the Chapter House

Activités en option

• Salisbury Cathedral tower tour (332 steps, booked ahead)
• Old Sarum, the hilltop site of the first cathedral

Beaulieu and the river walk to Buckler's Hard

Salisbury to Beaulieu, along the Beaulieu River on foot to Buckler's Hard, then Brockenhurst

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Brockenhurst
• Environ 1.5 h de route

Matin

We check out after breakfast and drive about an hour south into the New Forest, where ponies graze the verges and have right of way on the roads. We reach Beaulieu at its 10 am opening. One ticket covers Palace House, the Montagu family home built around the gatehouse of a Cistercian abbey that King John founded in 1204, the abbey ruins and cloister, and the National Motor Museum, whose collection runs from Victorian carriages to land-speed record cars. Then we leave the minibus and walk about 3.5 km, flat and easy, along the wooded bank of the Beaulieu River to Buckler's Hard. This single wide street of 18th-century cottages running down to the water was a shipyard that built warships for Nelson's navy, including HMS Agamemnon.

Après-midi

Lunch is a sit-down meal by the river, then the small maritime museum, and a short drive to Brockenhurst, where we stay two nights. The late afternoon is yours.

Compris

• Beaulieu: Palace House, Beaulieu Abbey and the National Motor Museum
• Guided riverside walk from Beaulieu to Buckler's Hard
• Sit-down lunch at Buckler's Hard
• Buckler's Hard and its maritime museum

Ponies, tall trees and Lyndhurst

A New Forest loop from Brockenhurst to Rhinefield and Lyndhurst

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du soir
• Nuit : Brockenhurst
• Environ 45 min de route

Matin

Late morning we reach Lyndhurst: the New Forest Heritage Centre, and St Michael and All Angels church, with Pre-Raphaelite stained glass and the grave of Alice Liddell, the girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland.

Après-midi

Lunch and the afternoon are yours.

Soir

In the evening we drive out to a forest pub for dinner together.

Compris

• Guided walk on the open forest from Brockenhurst
• Rhinefield Ornamental Drive and the Tall Trees Trail
• Lyndhurst: the New Forest Heritage Centre and St Michael and All Angels church
• Dinner at a New Forest pub

Activités en option

• Bike hire in Brockenhurst for the forest gravel tracks
• The train to Lymington for its harbour and Saturday market

Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door and Corfe Castle

Brockenhurst to Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, then Corfe Castle, then west to Lyme Regis

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Lyme Regis
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Matin

We leave Brockenhurst at 8:30 and drive about an hour and a quarter to Lulworth, arriving around 9:45, before the late-morning crowds. Lulworth Cove is an almost perfect circle of water held inside the cliffs; from there your guide walks you over the hill on the coast path to Durdle Door, a limestone arch standing in the sea, about 1.6 km each way with a steep climb.

Après-midi

Then we drive a short way east to the village of Corfe Castle for a sit-down lunch and the castle itself, a royal fortress for about 500 years until Elizabeth I sold it in 1572, later blown apart by Parliament's troops in 1646 after a siege. Late afternoon we drive west through Dorchester, about an hour and three quarters, to Lyme Regis, where we stay two nights.

Soir

The evening is free.

Compris

• Lulworth Cove with your guide
• Coast path walk from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door
• Sit-down lunch in Corfe Castle village
• Corfe Castle

Fossils at Lyme Regis and the Abbotsbury swans

Lyme Regis beaches on foot, then east along the coast road to Abbotsbury and back

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lyme Regis
• Environ 2 h de route

Matin

This morning a local fossil collector takes the group onto the beach for about two hours, timed to the falling tide: how to read the rock layers, where ammonites and belemnites wash out, and what is safe and legal to keep (most loose finds on the beach). Then we visit the Lyme Regis Museum, built on the site of Anning's birthplace.

Après-midi

After a sit-down lunch in town, we drive about an hour east through Bridport to Abbotsbury Swannery, at the western end of the Fleet lagoon behind Chesil Beach, a 29 km bank of shingle, where hundreds of mute swans nest in a colony begun by Benedictine monks in the 11th century.

Soir

We are back in Lyme by about 5:30, and the farewell dinner is in town tonight.

Compris

• Fossil walk on the beach with a local collector
• Lyme Regis Museum
• Sit-down lunch in Lyme Regis
• The view over Chesil Beach from Abbotsbury Hill
• Abbotsbury Swannery
• Farewell dinner in Lyme Regis

A last morning in Lyme Regis and the train to London

Lyme Regis to Axminster station, then the train to London Waterloo

• Petit-déjeuner
• Environ 15 min de route

Matin

The morning is free in Lyme Regis. Walk the Cobb before breakfast while the harbour is quiet, look for fossils on Monmouth Beach on your own with what you learned yesterday, or sit with a coffee on the seafront. We leave at about 11 am and drive about 15 minutes inland to Axminster station, where your guide checks you onto your train.

Après-midi

A standard-class ticket to London Waterloo is included, and direct trains take about 2 hours 45 minutes on the West of England line, passing back through Salisbury on the way, so you are in central London by mid-afternoon.

Soir

For a flight home from Heathrow the same day, book one leaving after about 8 pm, or stay a night in London and we can book it for you. If you would like more time by the sea, stay on in Lyme Regis and take a later train on the same ticket, subject to its rules.

Compris

• Drop-off at Axminster station
• Standard-class rail ticket from Axminster to London Waterloo