Old Harry Rocks

Old Harry Rocks stand at Handfast Point where the chalk of the Purbeck ridge meets the sea, and they are the western end of a formation that once ran unbroken across to the Needles on the Isle of Wight, twenty kilometres east; the sea breached it and flooded the valley behind, and the two sets of stacks are what is left of the same wall. The process continues visibly: Old Harry's Wife, a stack beside the main one, collapsed in 1896, and arches in the headland are widening toward becoming stacks themselves. Who Old Harry was is disputed, with candidates including the devil, a Poole pirate and a Viking. The walk from Studland runs along the clifftop with the stacks appearing at the end, and the chalk grassland on the way holds orchids.

What you actually see

• The chalk stacks - white pinnacles at the end of the Purbeck ridge.
• The arches - openings in the headland at an earlier stage of the same process.
• The Isle of Wight - the Needles visible east, the other end of the same formation.
• The clifftop walk - about a mile from Studland over chalk grassland.

When to go

April to October for the walk; the path is exposed and muddy in winter. Clear days show the Needles across the water. Early mornings avoid both crowds and the worst of the summer parking.

Honest expectations

The cliff edge is undercut, unfenced and collapsing, and people have died going too close for photographs. The walk is on open clifftop with no shade. Parking at Studland is National Trust and charged, and it fills in summer.

Nearby

Studland's beaches lie west; Swanage and Corfe Castle are south and inland.