Why this ride
A 309 km round trip from Amesbury - roughly 4 h 42 in the saddle. The stops in between: New Swanage to Studland Bay, Chesil and back through New Swanage to Studland Bay. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Stonehenge and Associated Monuments and Chesil
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 309 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 42
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Stonehenge and Associated Monuments
Stonehenge looks smaller than people expect and stranger than the photographs, a ring of grey stones standing alone on a swell of chalk grassland with the sky pressing down. It sits on Salisbury Plain, a high, open expanse of downland that was a holy landscape long before the stones. The monument went through phases from about 3000 BC, with the great sarsen blocks raised around 2500 BC, hauled, it seems, from the Marlborough Downs some thirty kilometres to the north. The smaller bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in west Wales, about two hundred kilometres away, which remains one of the most astonishing facts in European prehistory.
Read the complete Stonehenge and Associated Monuments write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Stonehenge and Associated Monuments is where the day begins. Next is New Swanage to Studland Bay.
2. New Swanage to Studland Bay
Between Swanage and Studland, the chalk of the Purbeck Hills meets the sea at the Foreland, and the white stacks of Old Harry Rocks stand off the headland like broken teeth. This is the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast, the World Heritage stretch of Dorset and East Devon that runs back through two hundred million years of geological history, and here the rocks are the youngest of the sequence, Cretaceous chalk. From Ballard Down above New Swanage, the views take in Swanage Bay, the Isle of Wight and the long sandy curve of Studland Bay.
Read the complete New Swanage to Studland Bay write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
New Swanage to Studland Bay comes up about 96 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chesil.
3. Chesil
Twenty-nine kilometres of shingle, piled high and steep and running almost dead straight from West Bay to the Isle of Portland: Chesil Beach is one of the great natural oddities of the English coast. Behind it lies the Fleet, a long, shallow, brackish lagoon full of eelgrass and birds, and the whole system is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. The pebbles grade in size along the beach, small as peas at the western end and as big as potatoes towards Portland, so precisely that smugglers landing on dark nights were said to know where they were by the feel of the stones.
Read the complete Chesil write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 154 km into the recorded legs you reach Chesil. Next is back through New Swanage to Studland Bay.
4. back through New Swanage to Studland Bay
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete New Swanage to Studland Bay write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through New Swanage to Studland Bay, late in the day. Next is Stonehenge and Associated Monuments.
5. Stonehenge and Associated Monuments
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stonehenge and Associated Monuments write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Stonehenge and Associated Monuments. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Stonehenge and Associated Monuments to New Swanage to Studland Bay
Stonehenge and Associated Monuments → New Swanage to Studland Bay is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
New Swanage to Studland Bay to Chesil
New Swanage to Studland Bay → Chesil is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chesil to back through New Swanage to Studland Bay
Chesil → back through New Swanage to Studland Bay is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through New Swanage to Studland Bay to Stonehenge and Associated Monuments
back through New Swanage to Studland Bay → Stonehenge and Associated Monuments is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.