Corfe Mullen

Lady Wimborne Cottages

 

The last few days have been quite busy, so we decided on a short local walk for today's outing. We started at the Lambs Green Inn in Corfe Mullen, which looked to be a nice pub, and continued along the lane. We soon turned right and were delighted to find a pair of Lady Wimborne cottages.

Canford Manor (now a school) was bought by Sir Josiah Guest, a wealthy ironmaster, and his wife (Lady Charlotte) in 1846 and turned into a mansion by Sir Charles Barry Jr. Lady Charlottle evidently had a social conscience and promoted the building of good quality houses for her estate workers. The first cottages, with three bedrooms and a separate privy and pigsty, were built in nearby Merley in 1867. Building of the distinctive houses continued in various locations around Poole until 1904. Around 111 houses were built. The buff coloured bricks, the plaques which you can see above the first floor windows and the elaborate drip mouldings over the windows are distinctive features. A fuller picture can be found in this excellent post from the Poole Museum Society.

Soon afterwards we reached a brick bridge which once went over the Bournemouth to Bath railway line which was opened in 1872. You can still just make out railway bed, but it is very overgrown.

The next section leads through the wooded, and wonderfully named, Happy Bottom Nature Reserve. 

I am sure my 3 year-old grandson would be in fits to hear of such a place.

We emerged to cross a road (the B3074) and continue along a dead straight track, which was once a Roman road from Hamworthy to Badbury Rings and Hod Hill. You can see on the OS map that it is arrow-straight from Upton almost as far as the pub. Another lengthy straight section runs north from Badbury Rings.

A couple of left turns brought us  back to the B3074 and a good view of another railway bridge.

Here the railway bed is in good shape and may provide a nice walk.

We walked along Ashington Lane and just as we were about to turn left into a path leading to the small valley which is Happy Bottom, we spotted more Lady Wimborne houses. These are in very good shape and have variegated drip mouldings ...

... but the pair down the hill have not fared so well.

Sadly, Happy Bottom was rather underwhelming and we soon left it to follow a path alongside the railway cutting called Wayman's Way, given as a right of way by Charles Wayman. This led us to the railway bridge which marks the end of the disused railway. We turned right here to retrace our steps to the pub. 

We did however get a distant view of Wimborne Minster.

Conditions: grey but quite warm.

From: Pub walks in Dorset (Countryside Books). The directions were very good, but the sketch map was harder to follow and didn't seem to be entirely to scale.

Map: Explorer 118 (Shaftesbury & Cranborne Chase).

Distance: 3 miles.

Rating: three stars.