Pictures of Cerne Abbas

About Cerne Abbas

Interestingly, it is said that the first bootees worn by Queen Victoria as a young child, came from Cerne, so too in earlier day's did boots worn by Sir Walter Raliegh and this fact indicates that at one time Cerne had an important boot and shoe making industry.
But it is not for this that this delightful area is famous, more is owed to the Benedictine Abbey around which the village grew up beneath the shadow of the the Giants Hill with it's 'huge' chalk figure of a man cut into the turf of the hill. The 180ft chalk giant is said to date back to before the arrival of the Romans.

Cerne Abbas is mentioned in the Domesday Book, the Monastry was founded much earlier on in the 10th-century. To-day, all that remains of this once great Abbey is the large Porch thought to originally be the entrance to the Abbot's dining room. The village itself is a delightful mixture of thatched, stone and colour-washed cottages of which good examples can be seen in Long Street. There are some fine black and white half timbered buildings and Abbey Farm is a handsome gabled tudor building.

Many facts and legends surround this pleasant town; it is believed that the quality of the water here produced good beer; in 1883 the village supported fourteen inns and one assumes the 'water' must have been very good indeed. Another story tells of hard hats being made here during the 19th-century that were so strong you could jump on them. Perhaps the most curious of all is the legend from the early 1800's when women slept on the giants hill at night as a cure for infertility, one supposes though, that this only occured in high summer!

Cerne Abbas is in a beautiful region of England and is but a few miles north of the town of Dorchester and a stone's throw from the superb Weymouth bay coastline. You will find much to see and do, both Dorchester and Weymoth have excellent museums, there is a beautiful garden at Kingston Maurward and a short distance from here you will find Thomas Hardy's cottage, now owned by the National Trust and open to the public. You will enjoy your time in this attractive and very English area and of the memories you take home, the abiding one will surely be of the huge giant guarding a ruinous Abbey.