There and Back

The Lulworth Estate extends over 12,000 acres (20 square miles) of the south Dorset countryside, including 5 miles of the Jurassic Coast and internationally renowned landmarks such as Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. Lulworth estate pedigree can go back as far as Doomsday times in the 11th century and beyond, and, since 1641, it has been owned and managed by the Weld family. In 1641 Humphrey Weld, grandson of a rich London Merchant and direct ancestor of the current owner, purchased the Lulworth Estates from Thomas Howard who had built the Castle here between 1608 and 1610 to complement his manor house at Bindon Abbey in the nearby village of Wool. Humphrey did not have the Castle for long before the Civil War erupted in England, during which the manor house at Wool was destroyed and the Estate sequestrated by the Parliamentarians. After the Civil War Humphrey Weld needed to refurbish the Castle’s interior as it was now the main family home and needed alterations to make it permane...

We had wanted to visit Dorset for some time, so this cottage was a perfect choice for a weeks holiday with Hayley and Izobelle. It was close to Portland Bill and not too far from Lulworth, in an area called Fleet.  Fleet is a small, scattered village and civil parish in south Dorset, approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) west of Weymouth, and close to the shore of The Fleet, a brackish lagoon behind Chesil Beach.  The Great Storm of 1824 caused waves to breach Chesil Beach, and many of the buildings in the village were destroyed. An eye-witness described the event: At six o'-clock on the morning of the 23rd I was standing with other boys by the gate near the cattle pound when I saw, rushing up the valley, the tidal wave, driven by a hurricane and bearing upon its crest a whole haystack and other debris from the fields below. We ran for our lives to Chickerell, and when we returned found that five houses had been swept away and the church was in ruins. It was much calmer o...