The complete guide to: Wessex

This ancient kingdom steeped in legend covers a broad sweep of southern England. It has beaches, historic sites, and country walks to enjoy during the long summer holidays

Where is Wessex?

If you listen to Wessex FM, travel on Wessex Trains and use Wessex Water, you may be surprised to learn that Wessex no longer exists. Established in the 6th century, the tribal kingdom of Wessex changed shape repeatedly during its 300-year life. At its greatest, it stretched from Cornwall to Kent, with Winchester at its heart and Alfred as its king. The name Wessex is a shortened version of "West Saxony", although the region's early inhabitants included Jutes and Celts as well as Saxons.

Since its demise in the 9th century, there have been several attempts to resurrect the region, most famously by Thomas Hardy in the 19th century, who used Wessex as the setting for his novels. (Wessex was also the name Hardy gave to his bad-tempered dog.) Today, organisations bearing the name Wessex serve counties as far-ranging as Devon, Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Herefordshire and Hampshire. Some base their definition on archaeological and historical sources, some on where the Wessex dialect was spoken, and some on Thomas Hardy's map, while others have simply defined Wessex to suit themselves. In the spirit of "invent your own Wessex" this article focuses on the (arguably) core counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

Home to Edward and Sophie?

The Earl and Countess of Wessex actually live in Bagshot in Surrey. Prince Edward is the third Earl of Wessex, following on from Godwin, to whom King Canute first gave the title, and his son Harold Godwinson, later Harold II of England. When the Normans invaded in 1066 they abolished local earldoms, and the office of Earl of Wessex was abandoned for 1,000 years until Prince Edward adopted it on his marriage to Sophie Rhys-Jones. However, as the historian David Starkey points out, "The title itself is a total fiction. There is nowhere called Wessex."

Isn't It Worzel Gummidge country?

The traditional view of Wessex is that of a region full of yokels; people who call you "my lover", and decline the verb to be "I be, you be, he be, we be, you be, they be" while conversing in a West Country burr about "them apples" and sipping a pint of scrumpy. This is, of course, far from the whole story, and today's inhabitants are more likely to be commuters than dairymaids. The region's landscape varies from rolling hills and hedgerows to trout streams and healing waters; from milk-and-honey valleys to chalk downland and bleak plains; from sacred sites to smugglers' coves, and from seaside resorts to suburban sprawl. Incidentally, Scatterbrook Farm in the TV series of Worzel Gummidge, was actually Pucknell Farm in the Test Valley in Hampshire (which may or may not be in Wessex).

What about Thomas Hardy country?

The first guide to Thomas Hardy country was published in 1904, starting a trend in tracking down the sites featured in Hardy's novels. This pursuit is complicated by the fact that many of the places the author mentions have been condensed or expanded, while buildings have been transposed or amalgamated. If you want to follow the Hardy trail, take Fred Pitfield's Hardy's Wessex locations as your guide (Dorset Publishing Company, £9.95).

Perhaps the most-visited Hardy site is his own thatched cottage in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset (01305 262366, open 1 April-4 November, daily except Friday and Saturday, 11am-5pm; £2.60 per person). It was built by his great-grandfather in 1800. Sitting in the window-seat here, Hardy wrote Under The Greenwood Tree and Far From The Madding Crowd. Nature trails through neighbouring Thorncombe woods, a wildlife sanctuary, are especially enchanting during the bluebell season, and from here you can also walk to Stinsford Church where Hardy's heart is buried. The rest of his body is interred in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

You can stay in cottages converted from barns built by Hardy's father at Greenwood Grange, a short distance from Hardy's Cottage (0870 585 1111; www.english-country-cottages.co.uk). The cottages have a communal indoor swimming pool, sauna and solarium. Each cottage sleeps four; and costs £666 for a week in August.

Any other literary connections?

Loads. On the Cobb (an artificial breakwater) in the historic Dorset seaside town of Lyme Regis, John Fowles' French Lieutenant's Woman stood hooded and windswept, and Louisa Musgrove jumped and fell in Jane Austen's Persuasion. After Charmouth, Lyme also boasts one of the best fossiling beaches on the south coast, and it was here that 11-year-old Mary Anning astonished the scientific community in the early 19th century by finding the skeleton of an icthyosaurus. A two-bedroom thatched cottage on the sea-front can be rented from Lyme Bay Holidays (01297 443363; www.lymebayholidays.co.uk) for £525 per week in August or £400 per week in September.

J Meade Faulkner was a contemporary of Thomas Hardy's and author of the much-loved smuggling story, Moonfleet. The Fleet is a lagoon separating Chesil Beach, an 18-mile ridge of shingle stretching from the Isle of Portland to Bridport, from the mainland. On the far side of the Fleet many vessels foundered, causing the lee shore to be known as "Deadman's Bay", or in John Meade Faulkner's story, "Moonfleet Bay". Fleet Old Church is where John Trenchard is supposed to have been trapped in Blackbeard's vault. Moonfleet Manor (01305 786948; www.moonfleetmanor.com) on The Fleet is situated at the end of a two-mile winding lane. It has a pleasantly ramshackle, old-colonial feel and superb sea views over to Portland Bill. A single room for one night starts from £80.

The birthplace of Britain?

Neolithic man certainly made his mark here. The greatest concentration of prehistoric monuments in Britain occurs in Wiltshire, which is home to burial mounds, hill forts and henge monuments. The most famous is Stonehenge (open 1 June-31 August, 9am-7pm; 1 September-15 October from 9.30am-6pm; £4 per adult, £2 per child). The site is about to get a £57m revamp designed to improve public access to the stones, to take away traffic and to create a visitor centre. Not far away is Avebury, the largest of the 900 or so surviving stone circles in Britain. Fourteen times larger than Stonehenge, the Avebury circle is also more than 500 years older. Access to the Avebury stones is free and unrestricted. Also in the vicinity are West Kennet Long Barrow, one of the longest Neolithic burial chambers in Britain; Silbury Hill, the largest artificial mound in Europe dating back to around 2700bc; and Windmill Hill, the site of the earliest Neolithic farming culture in England.

You can explore Wiltshire's Neolithic world on a new four-day walking tour run by Foot Trails (01747 861851; www.foottrails.co.uk). The trail crosses the open countryside of the Vale of Pewsey and the northern tip of Salisbury Plain, taking in at Windmill Hill, Avebury, Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow and Stonehenge. The cost is £375 per person with a single person supplement of £15 per night. Accommodation is at the two-star Lamb Inn, an old country hotel in the idyllic Wiltshire village of Hindon. You will walk about eight miles each day at a relaxed pace. Foot Trails also offers one-day six-mile guided walks around Stonehenge. The price of £19.95 per person includes a picnic lunch.

I want to stay on the beaten track

Two of the best-loved walks that pass through Wessex are the Macmillan Way and the Monarch's Way. The 290-mile Macmillan Way actually starts in Lincolnshire, but passes through Wiltshire and ends on the Dorset coast at Abbotsbury. It was originally devised as a charity walk to raise money for the Macmillan Cancer Relief and is now fully waymarked. The walk has its own website at www.macmillanway.org.

The Monarch's Way follows the flight of Charles II after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. It is more than 600 miles long in its entirety, but the section within Wessex runs from Bristol via Wells to Yeovil in Somerset, through Charmouth and Bridport in Dorset, then to Wincanton in Somerset and just north of Salisbury in Wiltshire before passing on into Hampshire and Sussex. The Monarch's Way website is at www.monarchsway.50megs.com.

Wycheway Country Walks (01886 833828; www.wychewaycountrywalks.co.uk) offers a series of guided walking holidays following the Monarch's Way. The price for a one-week guided walk is £395 per person, including accommodation in small hotels, guesthouses or farmhouses, breakfast and packed lunch. The average daily walking distance is 10 miles.

Where can I unwind?

Glastonbury is famous as the site of annual musical mayhem and mud baths, but it is also a spiritual centre for Druids, New Age travellers and Christians. Here, ley lines are supposed to converge; here, Joseph of Arimathea, the 1st-century missionary is said to have settled, bringing with him the Holy Grail; and here, 12th-century monks allegedly unearthed the bones of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.

You can chill out in Chalice Well Gardens (01458 831154; www.chalicewell.org.uk; 1 April-31 October, 10am-6pm; £2.30 per adult, £1.20 per child) or in the ruin of Glastonbury Abbey (www.glastonburyabbey.com; 1-31 August, 9am-6pm; 1-30 September, 9.30am-6pm; £3.50 per adult; £1.50 per child). Or raise your spiritual consciousness at the Shambhala retreat (01458 831797; www.shambhala.co.uk) on the slopes of Glastonbury Tor. Two nights accommodation, plus breakfast and lunch, costs £128 per person. Use of the Jacuzzi, sauna and meditation sanctuary are included; other treatments are extra. Not suitable for those likely to be turned off by introductory sessions entitled "Opening the Heart" and "Meeting Your Guardian Angel".

Something more sophisticated?

For a more upmarket break, the obvious choice is the "golden" city of Bath, so-called because of the colour of the limestone buildings. The season here used to extend from October to May, creating a social whirl of assemblies, balls, gambling and gossip. Some time next year, things will hot up once again as a new spa finally opens, making use of the natural springs which bubble up out of the ground at 100F. The spa combines new and historic buildings, is costing a cool £22m, and is running very late. You can keep up-to-date with progress on www.bathspa.co.uk.

Stay in style now at the five-star Bath Spa Hotel (0870 400 8222; www.bathspahotel.com), voted top spa hotel in the UK by readers of Condé Nast Traveller in 2001. Set in seven acres of gardens, the hotel has two gyms, an indoor pool, spa pool and sauna, and treatment rooms. Two people staying over a weekend pay £316 per room per night, with dinner and breakfast.

What about the seaside?

Wessex has two patches of coastline; in the west the Severn Estuary stretches from Avonmouth in the north to Porlock in the south, while the south Dorset coast extends from Lyme Regis in the west to Christchurch in the east. The most popular seaside resorts include Weymouth and Bournemouth in Dorset and Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. Weymouth became a fashionable seaside resort after King George III went to bathe there every summer. If modern royals feel over-exposed, they may like to remember that every time the king bathed, crowds cheered and played the national anthem.

As Weymouth became increasingly popular, Bournemouth was developed as a more exclusive alternative. Portrayed as Sandbourne in Tess Of The d'Urbervilles, Bournemouth has not changed much since Hardy described it as a "fashionable watering place... with its piers, its groves of pines, its promenades and its covered gardens", and still likes to think of itself as a cut above its rivals, Blackpool and Brighton. More fun on piers is to be had at Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. Weston is also a good base from which to explore Wookey Hole Caves, Cheddar Caves and Gorge, Longleat, Bath and Bristol.

For details of thousands of hotels and guesthouses throughout the Wessex area, go to www.resort-guide.co.uk.

Where's the best port in a storm?

The thousand-year-old port of Bristol. This summer from 22 August-22 September you can visit the "Dance Live! Bristol" festival. Spanning venues across the city, the festival features World Dance Day (Lloyds TSB Amphitheatre, 25 August) and "Dance Bites" introducing the Autumn Fashion Shows with Jeff Banks (the Mall at Cribbs Causeway, 19-21 September), among other events. For more information go to www.visitbristol.co.uk.

For gentler entertainment, attend a series of free Friday lunchtime and early evening jazz performances in Queen Square throughout August; take a boat trip from Bristol Industrial Museum around the Floating Harbour on the newly-restored John King, a 1935 motor tug; or explore Bristol's Georgian village, Clifton, on a guided walk any Saturday or Sunday in August at 12pm, 1pm or 2pm.

A village affair

Poetic, picturesque and perfect for TV

John Betjeman was a regular visitor to Dorset and loved the sounds of the names of the villages. His poem "Dorset" begins "Rime Intrinsica, Fontmell Magna, Sturminster Newton and Melbury Bubb..." Other Wessex towns and villages worth a visit include:

Lacock in Wiltshire. This National Trust village dates from the 13th century. Its lime-washed, half-timbered and stone houses made it the ideal setting for Meryton in the most recent BBC dramatisation of Pride and Prejudice. The medieval Lacock Abbey also featured in the film of Harry Potter (01249 730501; www.nationaltrust.org.uk). The museum, cloisters & garden are open 16 March -3 November daily, 11am-5.30pm; closed Good Friday; the abbey is open 30 March-3 November, daily 1pm-5.30pm (closed Tuesdays and Good Friday). Entrance to all costs £6.20 per adult, £3.40 per child or £16.80 for a family ticket.

In contrast, Poundbury, an extension of Dorchester, has been used as a model for urban development. This highly modern village has been designed, with input from the Prince of Wales, to be energy efficient, to create a sense of community, and so that people with different incomes live next door to one another.

Midsomer Norton in Somerset is ITV's murder capital of the country, while Golden Hill in Shaftesbury is featured in the famous Hovis advert, accompanied by Dvorak's "New World Symphony" and out-of-place Yorkshire accents.

The picturesque village of Corfe on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset offers easy access to sandy beaches at Studland, Swanage and Sandbanks, the steam Swanage Railway, riding, golf and great walks. The ruin of Corfe Castle (01929 481294; www.nationaltrust.org.uk) towering above the village on a conical hill in a gap in the Purbeck ridge is visible for miles around (open daily all year, except 25, 26 December and one day in mid-March; April to October 10am-6pm; £4.30 per adult, £2.15 per child, £10.80 per family – two adults and three children).