Places to visit

The Lower Stour

Featured in the Domesday Book, the residential parish of Corfe Mullen takes its name from Saxo-Norman meaning ‘a mill in a gap’ and the mill, on the River Stour, sadly no longer in use, is described in the book as the most valuable corn mill in Dorset. For many years Corfe Mullen was important for smugglers, acting as a point of distribution and forwarding centre for contraband landed in Poole Harbour and along the neighbouring coastline.



Longham is a linear village, with houses lining the road from the bridge over the River Stour to the pretty little church at the north end, where the parish abuts the town of Ferndown.

Situated between Ferndown and Wimborne, Stapehill is the site of the covenant of Our Lady of Dolours, the Holy Cross Abbey. The early 19th Century Cistercian Abbey, for 200 years home to a closed silent order of nuns, is now open for all to enjoy. Nearby visitors can discover Chelsea Gold award winning Knoll Gardens Nursery, with over 5000 plants, including several national collections, from grasses, trees and shrubs to colourful hardy plants.

Although Dudsbury at West Parley was named after a Saxon called Dude, it was first fortified by men 150 years before the birth of Christ. The Iron Age fort, on the banks of the Stour, was a defensive site with good views of the surrounding countryside. An external niche in the wall of the charming historic parish church contains an earthenware pot believed to have contained the heart of the ‘Lady of Lydlinch’, a local girl who moved away to marry but wished her heart to be buried in West Parley as she felt it had always belonged there.