Dorset pub stroll — The Coppleridge Inn
Motcombe Shaftesbury SP7 9HW 01747 851980 Free house
Published in August ’06
How to get there: From Shaftesbury take the B3081 towards Gillingham. Just after going under the A30, on a sharp left-hand bend, turn right, signed to Motcombe. Continue into and through the village to where the road bends sharply right. Here turn left and follow the road to the Coppleridge Inn on the left.
Landlord: Chris Goodinge
Open: 10 am – 11 pm
Beers: Butcombe, Greene King and a rotating guest beer. Various keg beers. Guinness. Stella, Fosters, Butcombe Blond.
Food: 12 – 2.30, 7 – 9 (9.30 Saturday and Sunday)
Families: Welcome. Special children’s garden with play equipment.
Disabled access: Very good
The stroll is a couple of miles long, through a typical Blackmore Vale landscape of gently undulating fields punctuated by clumps of woodland. Duncliffe Hill is an almost constant companion to the south. As this is the Blackmore Vale, some of the ground can be muddy after wet weather and rough after dry, so flimsy footwear is not a good idea.
Turn left out of the pub’s car park and walk along the lane. Pass Lower Lodge Farm on the right and, shortly after, the remains of a cattle grid. Continue along a drive until it starts to bend to the left, where bear right off it and continue straight ahead across the field to a gap visible on the far side. Here go through the gate and walk straight ahead across two fields, aiming for the bottom corner of some dense woodland which runs in diagonally from the right.
Reaching the bottom of the second field, by the edge of the wood, turn left through a gate a few yards up from the corner and immediately left again, up a path with a hedge to the left and a fence to the right. At the end of the field, go through a gate and follow the left-hand edge of the open field beyond. Where this field-edge turns sharply left, bear right towards a gap in the middle of the far side of the field.
Cross a stile here and walk straight ahead towards the far corner of a triangular field. Just before the corner, turn right on a rough track through a gate. Turn immediately left and follow the edge of the field round to the far corner. Here go through a gate and bear left to cut the corner across to the left-hand edge of the field. Turn right and follow the field-edge to a gate. Continue straight ahead, along the left-hand edge of the next open field. At the far end, turn left on a path which leads through a gate and over a little bridge. Follow the path as it swings right then left and leads up to a road. Turn left and, in about 150 yards, left again to return to the Coppleridge Inn.
