Our verdict
Worth combining with the main hillfort climb rather than visiting alone — the views from the top over the Stour valley are some of the best in north Dorset. Cattle graze the hill in summer, so dogs need to stay on a short lead throughout.
A wooded fringe on the lower slopes of Hambledon Hill, part of the wider National Nature Reserve where a huge Iron Age hillfort rises 190 metres above the Blackmore Vale. Cattle graze the open hill above, and the hill was also the site of a 1645 Clubmen uprising crushed by Cromwell's forces during the Civil War.