Into the woods...

Explore Duncliffe Wood, one of the oldest and largest woods in north Dorset, and the pretty village of Stour Row

- Edward Griffiths

Duncliffe Wood covers the double summits of Duncliffe Hill, with its highest point at 680ft.

The Domesday Book records that Roger de Belmont owned this woodland in 1086. After becoming Crown property in 1414, it was gifted to Eton College by Henry VI and to King’s College, Cambridge by Edward IV. The wood was coppiced for thatching spars, hurdles, firewood and bark for tanning until the 1930s.

At Stour Row, many cottages date from the 18th and 19th centuries but several outlying farms are much older. For example, Richard Atte Hill was living at Hill’s Farm in 1327 and William Hill in 1340. All Saints’ Church was built in the 1860s and held its last service in October 2015. The Congregational Chapel became the village hall in 1949, and College Arms Close recalls the village inn which flourished between 1829 and 1963. Formerly, Stour Row had a Post Office and shop, a service station and shop and, much earlier, a blacksmith, a carpenter and a boot-and-shoe maker.

THE WALK