Women walking the Dorset landscape

Our walks

Someone described these walks as ‘rewilding the body and brain’. Asked to explain, they said – walking puts you back in touch, not just with nature and natural processes, it also rebalances your personal ecosystem. Walking clears out the noise of modern life and lets your own landscape emerge.

Findlater & Sisters’ walks are designed for a range of abilities and distances. Before each walk you will receive detailed instructions for accessing the start point. Our preferred location finder is What Three Words. Click on the dates below to book a walk with us soon. Our walks are free.

Queens and Kings

BOOK NOW: Thursday 1st May, Saturday 31st May, Saturday 5th July

(8 miles. A few steep ascents)

10.00am - 2.15pm

Starting with a brisk walk up the ramparts of Cadbury Castle an Iron Age hillfort strongly associated with King Arthur and his queen Guinevere. We suspend disbelief for the first half of this walk and engage with the legends! You’ll need your imagination to conjure up the castle as not a trace remains today. The views across the Yeo valley to Glastonbury Tor from the Corton Ridge are breathtaking. Descend into Corton Denham village with a stop at the Queen’s Arms for refreshments then head back to Cadbury Castle, the carpark and the modern world!

Sydling St Nicholas and the Reddlewoman

BOOK NOW: Saturday 3rd May 

(10 Miles. Moderate – a few short steep hills)

10.00am - 3.30pm

Starting at the head of the Cerne Valley with a good stride along the Wessex Ridgeway, this walk includes the hidden village of Sydling St Nicholas. If you’ve read Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, you’ll be familiar with Diggory Venn the ‘reddle man’, who travelled Dorset selling red ochre (reddle) to mark sheep. We’ll explore the path of Mary Ann Bull, a real reddle woman who visited local farms selling ochre. Mary died in 1911 at the nearby Cerne Abbas workhouse and is buried in a pauper’s grave. From the Greyhound pub we can see sheep still grazing on these hills and, as we’ll discover, there are interesting modern interventions along the route which make this walk a landscape of women in history and memory.

The Valley of the Stones

BOOK NOW: Thursday 8th May, Thursday 10th July

(5 miles. Gentle ascents)

10.00am - 2.00pm

This walk puts us in touch with the bones of ancient Dorset. We start with the Valley of the Stones near Little Bredy, an impressive scattering of sarsen stones decorating the valley with only the second recorded polissoir in the UK. This polishing stone is evidence that neolithic man and woman crafted their tools here 5,000 years ago. The Durotriges, the Iron Age tribe who occupied this part of Dorset were matriarchal, so we’ll celebrate the power of our female ancestors as we visit some of their earliest gathering sites. This ambling walk will visit other standing stones, The Grey Mare and her Colts, but mostly we’ll have a jolly good walk deep in the Dorset countryside.

Hidden Sapphic Dorset

BOOK NOW: Saturday 14th June, Saturday 12th July

(8.7 miles. A few sharp ascents)

10.00am - 3.30pm

In the 1930s Valentine Ackland and Sylvia Townsend Warner set up home together in the village of Chaldon Herring, near Lulworth.  They joined in village life and lived happily in this very rural outpost for many years.  Sylvia wrote for The New Yorker and was an eminent musicologist, Valentine her lover and a poet. Other notable residents included Elizabeth Muntz, a sculptor and the literary Powys brothers. We’ll start our walk at Ringstead and journey along the breathtaking Jurassic Coast before going inland to Chaldon Herring, and heading back.

Shoreline, Saints and Sea

BOOK NOW: Sunday 18th May, Thursday 19th June, Thursday 17th July

(5 miles. Some short steep ascents – worth it for the views)

10.00am - 1.30pm

A rewarding walk through 5000 years of history on this circular route. Walking anti-clockwise from the car park, we’ll glimpse the ruined site of the monastery at Abbotsbury. St Catherine’s Chapel is complete and overlooks Chesil Beach. During the Medieval period St Catherine of Alexandria had a large female following. Her patronage included unmarried women, nurses, milliners, teachers and librarians. Many unmarried women made the pilgrimage to Abbotsbury to pray for a husband! As well a visit to the chapel we’ll enjoy the stunning views of the Jurassic Coast and Chesil Beach from the ridgeway, walk along the beach, and finish with an optional visit to the Chesil café.

Portland: Isle of independence

BOOK NOW: Thursday 22nd May, Thursday 26th June

(5.5 miles. Moderate)

10.00am - 1.00pm

The rugged landscape of the Isle of Portland contrasts with the gentle hills of mainland Dorset, but its wild scenery created by years of quarrying and stormy weather provides wonderful walking routes. Portlanders have always been independent, and this included their women who would only agreed to marry the man of their choice once they had provided a baby – no baby, no marriage.  Perhaps it was this independence that attracted birth control pioneer Marie Stopes to settle here.