Lulworth Cove and South Dorset Cottages

Fishermen have plied their trade from Lulworth Cove for centuries and still catch bass, conger, pollack and wrasse, even lobster there. The area and its immediate surroundings have a long history of smuggling and local folklore is rich with tales of desperate brigands and their running battles with the customs men and militia sent to catch them.

There’s also a rich literary history and the poet Keats spent his last hours on British soil at Lulworth while Rupert Brooke wrote poems there to his lost love and Bertrand Russell and various lovers outraged the locals by skinny-dipping!

The nearby village of Chaldon Herring was a writers’ hotspot in the 1920s and 1930s as home to the Powys brothers and sisters – Gertrude, Theodore, Llewellyn, John Cooper and Philippa – while the political sympathies and love affair of Sylvia Warner and Valentine Ackland who lived at West Chaldon aroused the attentions of MI5. 

In another local literary link TE Lawrence – the famous Lawrence of Arabia – lived at Clouds Hill while stationed at Bovington Camp close to where he was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1935.

Take a little time to browse through our selection of holiday cottages in South Dorset. We’re certain you’ll find something just right for a truly special Dorset holiday