Bovington Camp Things to Do

Continuing on to the grave, we found ourselves at St Nicholas at Moreton a couple of miles away. We had a walk around the small graveyard to no avail, deciding his grave must be in the church we went in to find a tour group having a talk by a guide. It turns out Freya & I had stumbled on what was considered the greatest work of art made in Dorset in the 20th century!

On October the 8th 1940, German plane dropped a bomb which destroyed the north wall of St Nicholas' Church and every pane of glass in the building was blown out. The windows were replaced by the most beautiful plain glass which was engraved with wonderful pictures & images by Laurence Whistler. Without the dark stained glass windows the church has a very uplifting airy feel to it, with the interior being much brighter than a normal church.

The windows are very beautiful, of you are in the area definitely pop by.

Check out the below website for more photos

Corfe Castle sits very dominatingly on a steep hill in east Dorset, the view of it from the eastbout approach road is wonderful.

It is thought there was a roman defence settlement here, the present castle was built in the 11th century, belief is it is was on the site of a wooden castle.

The property was given to the National Trust in 1982

Opening times & admission fees on the below website.

In Bovington, Dorset, is the succintly and accurately named Tank Museum. It is simply massive and houses what is probably the greatest collection of armoured vehicles, especially tanks, in the world. It has everything from Little Willie of 1915, the first experimental tank of WWI, and the other tanks of WWI, up to the modern day. Examples include a CV-33 Tankette, Pzkfw V Panther Medium Tank, Mathilda II, a Tiger I, Crusader, Churchill, etc., including some pretty obscure vehicles.

Not wanting to interrupt the talk in the church Freya & I wandered back towards the village & came across a builder, who finally gave us the directions to Lawrence’s Grave, it is in an external cemetery on the road which has the garden centre is situated, only a couple of hundred meters from St Nicholas church. We amazingly had the place to ourselves for a while, as you can see from the photo it is well maintained had fresh flowers.

His grave stone reads

To the dear memory of T.E Lawrence,
Fellow of All Souls Collage,
Oxford
Born 16th of August 1888
Died 19th May 1935
The hour is coming and now is
when the dead shall hear
the voice of the
Son of God
And they that hear
shall live

At the foot of the grave is another stone with Latin inscription which was kindly translated for me by Nettie

"God is my enlightening"

We left the graveyard feeling very chuffed with myself that I had found what we were looking for in a very unexpected and fascinating day out.

From here or the nearby Tank Museum you can do a 7 mile circular walk through the local Bovington forest, this takes your to the sights of his death, Clouds Hill, his local church, Bovington camp and the grave yard where he is now buried at Moreton. If you fancied something a bit longer it is possible to start the route at Wareham where Lawrence spent a lot of his free time, although this makes the trail 18 miles long! There are notice boards around the route or pick up a trail map from one of the local tourist offices.

Once leaving Clouds Hill, Freya & I set off in search of Lawrences grave, which in the literature at the house I had read it was in a near by village. Driving along the road I noticed some people looking at a rock near the public viewing area of the Tank Museum, we pulled over to find it was a memorial to T. E. Lawrence as he died near the spot. The memorial reads.

Near this spot
Lawrence
of
Arabia
crashed
on his
motorcycle
and was
fatally
injured
13th of May 1935

The Tank Museum is just huge, It sprawls over a large area with exhibits both inside & out. We didnt actually have time to go inside on this visit, but there is plenty to view from the outside.

A great feature is the public viewing area, just of the main road running past which is free to view. Army from the local camp train here in the areas you can see in the photo. We were not lucky enough to see any training in progress, but there were plenty of people waiting for it to start, so I imagine it is fairly regular.

Open all year round 10 - 5 admission £8.50 with consessions for children & OAPs.

Looking on a map of the local area I noticed a National Trust property called Clouds Hill. Knowing this was the name of T. E Lawrence's home, or better known as "Lawrence of Arabia", but not actually realising where it was in England. So we drove up to have a look to see if it was, and it was!

The car park is tiny so after telling a 4x4 driver to move his car over so other people can park, Freya & I excitedly squeezed in to a space parked up (admittedly I was slightly more excited than my 4 year old). We wandered over to the National Trust sign to read this was Lawrence's occassional retreat & admission was only £3.50