Cider, Ridges and Hidden Tales from West Dorset’s Marshwood Vale

The Enchanting Landscape of West Dorset

Certain corners of the landscape somehow hold or retain a greater air of mystery and intrigue than others. There’s no real reason for this - maybe something to do with the curvature of hills or a sense of intimacy promoted by the lay of the land. But somehow, when the contours combine and the geology and the flora and fauna all come together in one glorious orchestration, you can find yourself in a place that is not only different from the rest, but altogether more alluring.

Trig point on Pilsdon Pen

Exploring Ridge and Vale Country in West Dorset

That is what I was thinking as I climbed a steep hill in West Dorset last week. For this is ridge-and-vale-country and as such it pulls of the difficult trick of combining grandeur on a large scale with a comfortable intimacy that would make any self-respecting Hobbit beam from ear-to-ear. There’s nowhere else quite like it, certainly in the Westcountry. Ever since I read Geoffrey Household’s, The Rogue Male, as a boy I’ve been captured by the idea of West Dorset’s great ridges, its rich verdant vales and its secret hollow lanes.

Cider Orchards in Bloom Across the Marshwood Vale

And, in later years, I’ve also been intrigued by its orchards. For this is very much a cider-country. You will, at this time of year, spy the apple-tree’s tell-tale blossoms sparkling white and pink down in the goyals and side-valleys which descend in their intricate multitude to prove water and life to places like the wide and fertile Marshwood Vale.

A Journey With Cider Expert James Crowden

As such, it is an area much-explored by the nation’s greatest writer on all things apples and cider, James Crowden, who happens to live nearby. Regular readers of these pages will remember James - he’s a great friend of Hesp Out West and as such he occasionally prepares little adventures for me, and therefore you dear readers, to enjoy.

Cider adfficiando Tim Beer

Cider Bottles, Forgotten Signposts, and Dorset Tales

A week ago he sent me an invitation… “Come to my place and we will cross the border into Dorset, climb the ridges, meet some interesting characters, ascend Pilsdon Pen, visit an ancient inn that has been rescued from the bulldozers and which will soon once again be serving wonderful ciders made locally - indeed, we can perhaps meet some of those cider-makers and try their wares.”

In other words, it was the kind of day that promised nothing too scintillating or dramatic in particular, but a great deal in general. No big world-changing head-lines, but a rich crop of tiny, incidental, highly rural, stories. The sort of day that has the vaguest of beginnings and an even vaguer end. The kind of adventure, then, that suits Hesp Out West down to the fertile ground.

Tim Beer: A Local Legend of West Dorset

The first person we visited wasn’t all about cider, but partly about beer. Because his name is Tim Beer - a man who has lived in ridge-and-vale land all his life and who, as a consequence, has a great many stories to tell about the area. He has made cider, sold cider, and as a one-time road-mender for the county highways department, he has been down every single lane and byway of which there’s an absolute myriad down West Dorset way.

One of Tim’s old Dorset road signs

We met Tim in his shed (man-cave really would fit the bill) in his cottage garden situated high on one of the ridges - and the reason we were there is because he had told James that he’d come across some ancient bottle of cider which he’d kept for years. Mr Crowden happens to be a collector and sampler of such things and so he brought along an equally ancient bottle of fermented apple juice for Tim to taste.

Sampling Lost Ciders and Restoring Dorset Signposts

A deep brown liquor was poured from Tim’s bottle which he opened with a great flourish but which was absolutely flat as village pond-water (although he described it in another much more colourful way). Actually, being dark brown it looked a little like pond-water, but the assembled throng applauded it as an absolute sensation. As the driver I literally dipped my tongue briefly into a glass, which was enough for me to conclude it tasted like a very fine sherry.

Tim then proceeded to tell us all about the marvellous historic road-signs that clutter his shed. Many out in the wilds have become badly neglected over the years and Tim takes great pride, as a volunteer, in going out to rescue dilapidated examples and restoring them to their former glory. The circular-topped way-marks are one of the many mini-glories of the area.

Climbing Pilsdon Pen: A West Dorset Icon

“This one here was lying in a hedgerow for years and that’s why he’s all pitted. I’ve done my best to save it and we’ll put it back where he belongs,” said Tim, pointing to one old signpost before telling us some tales of the hair-raising variety all about his early years on the road-mending gangs. Apparently the first job at any new location in the “old days” was to find the best cider-farm locally where a barrel or two could be purchased a low-cost for the lubrication of the workers.

“My family has been here for centuries,” he said in his rich Dorset accent. “My mother traced us back to 1530 - that’s how long we’ve been here as a family - right on the Dorset-Somerset border. Up until 1963 the house was in Dorset but the back wall was in Somerset - I’ve got one of the original boundary markers.”

And so, onwards and-along-wards… We thought we’d best pay our respects to the area by climbing Pilsdon Pen. At 277 metres (909 feet), this mighty ridge crowned by an Iron Age hillfort was, for many years thought to have been the Dorset's highest point, offering panoramic views across the Marshwood Vale. However, modern surveys have revealed that its near neighbour, Lewesdon Hill, is slightly taller at 279 metres (915 feet), making it officially the county’s highest hill.

Climbing Pilsdon Pen

The Bottle Inn and the Return of a Dorset Institution

When you stand on Pilsdon Pen and look across at Lewesdon, it’s tempting to question this fact. Perhaps it’s the latter’s tall trees which give it the few extra feet - Pilsdon on the other hand is as bald as a peeled cucumber.

I don’t know why I reach for such an unlikely analogy, save for the idea that you might need a peeled cucumber to soothe your tongue if you were ever tempted to take part in the stinging nettle eating competition at the local pub. The Bottle Inn is an ancient road-side inn situated a couple of miles south of Pildson and it achieved worldwide fame in the 1980s and 90s for staging the World Nettle Eating Championship.

Resurrecting a Rural Pub: The Work of Tessa and Julian Blundy

Tessa and Julian Blundy

The place was boarded up for a few years after becoming pretty much rundown, but now it is close to being converted back to its former glory by a remarkable couple who have put an enormous amount of work and effort into what is a first-class renovation. Which is not exactly surprising given that the new landlady Tessa Blundy is an architect specialising in historic buildings - indeed her job for the past dozen years was helping to look after the Palace of Westminster. Husband, Julian, is a carpenter and together the two are doing a fabulous job of renovating the inn.

They decided to retire to this corner of the Westcountry because Tessa’s relations had lived locally and she knew the place as a girl - indeed her family has a direct connection with the nettle-eating contest.

The Origin of the Nettle-Eating Contest

“They farmed just across the road and the legend is that there was an argument in the pub about whose land grew the tallest stinging nettles. One of them said that if anybody grew a stinging nettle longer than his, he would eat it - he was confident because he was going to win anyway. So you can imagine the result and in 1986 that gave rise to the competition. Lots of newspapers carried the story, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall got involved, there were Japanese film crews - a huge amount of publicity - and that put the pub on the map.”

Looking Ahead: A Pub for the Community

The renovation is almost complete and the pub should be fully opened for business later this summer - and indeed is occasionally open for locals and passers-by. “Perhaps it was a mad decision to take on the project but Julian couldn't possibly live in a village without a decent pub,” laughed Tessa. “We saw the plight of the place and I started to get involved - and that was that, here we are hopefully opening soon a few years later.”

We had a picnic at The Bottle Inn

And here’s a delightful and unusual bit of news. Unlike many people who come down from the city to take on a remote country pub, The Bottle Inn is not about to become a restaurant that happens to serve the odd pint of beer. Tessa and Julian plan for it to be a proper old fashioned pub where people call in for a pint of locally brewed beer or cider. “There’ll be a few bar snacks, like pasties, and that will be it,” says Tessa, who hopes to find a live-in manager or tenant once the place is up and running.

Temple Cider: A Local Star in the Marshwood Vale

“And events. We have a new function room and garden where we can stage lovely events,” she added. Including, no doubt, one very famous event that will see brave folk chewing on nettles.

And when it comes to the cider that will be served the Blundys will not find a more local brand than Temple Cider. And, in my opinion, they will find very few better ciders.

Paul Harrison and Joanne Taylor, Temple Cider

Paul Harrison and the Craft of Minimal-Intervention Cider

Following our picnic lunch at The Bottle Inn, James Crowden took me three miles down the road to meet Paul Harrison and his partner Joanne Taylor who bought a local farm in one of Marshwood Vale’s many side-valleys back in 2013, with the intention of making very good cider.

They have succeeded in that aim. Some of their Temple Ciders are among the best I have tasted. Which is not a bad accolade for a couple who came down from Derbyshire where they had planted a small vineyard with a view to making wine.

From Engineering to Apple Fermentation

“Yes, I suppose I do like to have a go at different things,” shrugged ex-engineer Paul as he showed around his state-of-the-art cider-making enterprise tucked away in a beautiful coombe filled with newly planted apple trees. “We realised we really enjoyed the cider-making and then started looking deeper into the idea of single apple variety ciders. One of the things we’re very keen on is minimal intervention. We don’t add or take anything away from- which is different from wine-making where you can add chemicals and so on to stabilise everything.

“We’ve really gone down the road of taking the natural approach - just using what we’ve got and trying to get the best out of it,” added Paul.

He is the second ex-engineer cider-maker to feature in Hesp Out West in recent months and I get the distinct feeling that if you are blessed with having that careful methodical approach, then you can make some very good and interesting versions of a drink that comes from a very temperamental base - ie fermented apple juice. The Temple Ciders really are very very good and I recommend trying them by visiting www.templecider.co.uk and purchasing a few bottles or cans.