Walk 8 - Ower Quay

A long but mostly flat walk through the fringe of Rempstone Forest, and the unexpectedly lush northern meadows to the former customs house at Ower Point, where Roman and medieval Purbeck pottery and marble was shipped across the bay: a place of remarkable peace and tranquillity. 3 hours in all.

Local Walks
Agglestone
Old Harry Rocks
Ballard Down
Swanage
Little Sea
Fishing Barrow
Rempstone Forest
Ower Quay
Corfe Castle

This memorable expedition starts by retracing the route that forms the return from Walk 7: up past the cross-roads with the Ferry track, on over the hillock and diagonally across the two fields until you arrive at the clearing with a signpost to Rempstone where you emerge from Rempstone Forest after the ford. This time, do not turn left into the forest but continue straight on past the farm buildings on the right until you come to a triangular field with a gate at the far end leading to a meeting of three tracks. Take the left-hand one that doubles back along a second side of the triangle, and follow its windings for a mile or so, ignoring side-roads off to the right to Goathorn. The road, metalled at this point, gradually veers round to the left, and meets and runs parallel to the remnants of the old tramway, abandoned in 1937, that once ran from Corfe up to the pier on Goathorn Point. Then there is an abrupt turn half-right, and the road divides into two: take the smaller, right-hand, one that runs more-or-less straight ahead. After half a mile it emerges dramatically from the forest into an entirely unexpected scene, with rolling arcadian meadows punctuated by oak-trees, running down to the shores of Newton Bay on the right: pure Capability Brown.

Follow the path through this idyllic landscape (marred only by the occasional clumps of paraphernalia belonging to the oil pipe-lines that run below your feet) skirting a copse to your right, and then gently turning to the left until a metalled road is reached. Turn left along it until you come to the Ower cross-roads, where you turn right down a secluded lane: take the right fork at the end. To your left you will see a couple of ‘nodding donkeys’, busy lifting oil from their natural reservoirs below. Follow this road to where it turns right across a cattle grid: ahead you will see a gate leading to a narrow hedged lane. Go through, and follow it right down to the end, through the garden of the private house on the right to the shore.

This is Ower Quay, a spot now of almost magical peace and seclusion, but once the focus of bustling commercial activity and Purbeck’s chief port. The house to your right is the old Customs House, and for centuries it was here that the marble quarried from the workings in Corfe and southern Purbeck, and carried with immense labour across the heath, was finally put in ships that would carry it to London: it has been estimated that thousands of marble coffin lids followed this route during the middle ages. But in the eighteenth century the shipping of stone moved to Swanage, and Ower fell into neglect.

Retrace your steps to the Ower cross-roads, with the gate now ahead of you. If you have time, take the secluded road to the right, which leads to a woodland track of great beauty - now unfrequented, but once the Marblers’ Road, the route along which the marble and other goods were carted up to Ower Quay. If you are feeling adventurous and have a mobile phone with you, follow this path in the same direction right through the forest and out the other side, across a clearing to a minor road, where a left turn will bring you, after a mile, to the road from Corfe to Swanage where you can be picked up.

Otherwise, just go straight ahead, taking the broad and gently rising track into Rempstone Forest. After half a mile, you will come to a metalled road with telegraph poles running alongside. Go straight across, and you will see a fork ahead of you: take the left branch and follow it for another half mile (incidentally, keep your eyes open for deer, often seen in this part of the forest). You will then arrive at the tree-felling junction, mentioned in Walk 7. Take the fork immediately to your left, and you will be on the route home that completes that walk.