Page 111 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - England's South Coast

DORSE T AND SOMERSE T  109

DORSET AND SOMERSET

With the long, sandy beaches of Bournemouth, the
rural cottages of the Isle of Purbeck and the wild
scenery of Exmoor, Dorset and Somerset are
home to some of the country’s most beautiful
landscapes, lively coastal resorts and historic cities. The region’s natural highlights,
including the ancient fossil-rich Jurassic Coast, Cheddar Gorge and the Durdle Door
rock arch, are among England’s most iconic sights, while the cities of Bristol, Bath
and Dorchester have histories as ancient and fascinating as any in the country.

This sleepy, rural region has a surprisingly testament to the wealth acquired from the
rich history. First inhabited in Neolithic subsequent slave, tobacco and wine trades.
times, it was later settled by the Celts, who In the 18th century, the spa waters of Bath
founded strongholds such as Dorchester’s came back into fashion with the Georgians,
vast Maiden Castle. However, it was the who built the stunning Palladian-style town
Romans who really put the area on the map that we see today, while George III’s regular
when they built England’s first spa resort at visits to Weymouth kick-started its 200-
Bath in the 1st century AD – an amazing plus years as a popular seaside resort. With
feat of construction that is remarkably the arrival of the railway line in the 19th
intact today. Once the Romans left, the century, Bournemouth became one of the
southwest of England became a stronghold country’s most fashionable places to bathe.
of Celtic resistance, with the mythical King Equally impressive is the region’s geology.
Arthur leading the fight against the Saxons The UNESCO World Heritage Jurassic Coast
in the early 6th century – legend suggests encompasses most of Dorset’s shoreline, a
that he and his queen Guinevere were rugged series of coves and cliffs whose rock
buried at Glastonbury Abbey. falls reveal ancient fossils. Neighbouring
The region’s biggest city, Bristol became Somerset’s mild climate produces Cheddar
Britain’s main trans atlantic port after John cheese and cider apples for which the
Cabot, a Genoese navigator and explorer, region is famous. It boasts dramatic features,
set off from there to explore America in too, from the deep Cheddar Gorge to the
1497 – the city’s grand buildings are a plunging cliffs and valleys of Exmoor.

Grand sweep of the Royal Crescent, with a row of terraced houses once owned by the city’s wealthy elite, in historic Bath
A section of the stunning 153-km (95-mile) fossil-rich coastline of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site

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