Dorset Cycling 8-Moreton Circuit

This is a wonderful cycle.
The ride starts from Moreton village (see here), burial place of Lawrence of Arabia and home to a fine tea room. Crossing a wide, picturesque ford (with a bridge for those who want to keep dry...) it whizzes along a firm and level cinder track to Turners Puddle.

Here stands a small neglected church. The bells, dating from the 14th C, were stolen in the 1950s but mysteriously reappeared, covered in mud, that Christmas Eve at the door of the farm with a note attached saying simply 'Sorry, Christmas.'

The rest of the trip along quiet lanes and heath is exhilarating with sightings of deer if you're lucky. Should those deer turn out to be twenty feet high with green horns, that is probably because the path passes close to the now decomissioned Winfrith atomic station.

Distance 19 miles On and off road.

Dorset Villages Pt1 - Moreton

T.E.Lawrence. Great man not such a great  motorcyclist

Good old Lawrence of Arabia? He's right up there with Corfe Castle as an esteemed tourist attraction...And he doesn't take a penny for it...fine chap..!

His mortal remains lie in the pretty village of Moreton near Dorchester. Looking down on his humble resting place, bear in mind that you would very probably have looked down on him as well. 

Unlike the popular filmic image; Lawrence was actually a rather squat little tiddler, measuring just 5'2," though still a giant of a Renaissance man; archaeologist, writer philosopher, warrior etc. It was sad then that it was his motor bike skills that would let him down in the end. 

After paying your respects the nearby church of St Nicholas is worth a visit its stained glass windows, destroyed by a bomb in World War Two, were replaced with clear, engraved panes; lending it an unusually light and airy quality. The engraving was carried out over a period of thirty years by Sir Laurence Whistler, brother of the painter Rex Whistler. Sir Laurence was originally a poet but turned to glass engraving and produced work for both Salisbury Cathedral as well as the Oxford colleges. 

The village also has a private walled garden open to the public and an award-winning tearoom set in the old schoolhouse.

For your ghoulish delectation, the cake trolley was the bier that carried Lawrence to his final resting place. 

Don't they say it's a rocky road to Heaven?