Dorset

Introduction to Dorset

We thought we would take time to introduce you to Dorset and explain why we love it so much.

When John Welch moved here in 1999 he established Flight Culture and made the most of the beautiful local flying sites this county has to offer. Since then John and his students have soared the skies and it's hard not to fall in love with it when seen from above. We are lucky to have permission from a local farmer in Sturminster Newton to use his fields for our Paramotoring training and winching. From there it is only a 10 minutes to one of our best hill sites. Flight Culture is based in the Blackmore Vale area of Dorset known by readers of Thomas Hardy as the ‘Vale of the Little Dairies', home of his heroine Tess, in his novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy lived and wrote in Sturminster Newton so he knew this landscape and its people intimately. If you go to Dorchester you can tread the path of the Mayor of Casterbridge and see the site of the notorious Judge Jeffreys Bloody Assizes (now a restaurant) held in Dorchester in 1685.

The Poet William Barnes was born in Bagber near Sturminster Newton in North Dorset in 1801. His poems are seen as a valuable record of the old Dorset dialect and working people's lives in the 19th Century.

High on the hill over the picturesque village of Cerne Abbas is the Cerne Giant, an 180ft high male figure believed to be an ancient symbol of fertility. It is has also been strongly associated by local people with fertility rituals. The giant is thought to be representative of the Roman hero Hercules, who was often depicted naked with a club in his right hand. Although we don't have any flying sites directly over the giant, there is a great local pub that we sometimes visit.