84 Best Sights in The South, England

A perfect example of Queen Anne architecture, this family home built in 1701 sits on the north side of Cathedral Close. It's notable for magnificent plasterwork, an exceptional carved oak staircase, fine period furniture, and a superb collection of 18th-century drinking glasses. Tea and refreshments are served in a walled garden. Admission is by pre-booked tour only.

With an emphasis on local archaeological finds (largely Roman and Iron Age), costumes, and history, this museum in an Elizabethan town house charts the development of the East Dorset area. You can see how residents might have lived in the house through rooms furnished in the styles of several periods, including a 17th-century hall, reconstructions of local businesses that occupied the building, and a working Victorian kitchen. A tearoom overlooks a walled garden that has heritage fruit trees and displays of agricultural and horticultural tools.

This visitor complex with a gallery, museum, and reference library devoted to the New Forest contains displays and activities related to the area's geology, history, wildlife, and culture. The museum is packed with quizzes and other interactive elements that keep children engaged. There's also a café. It's located by the main parking lot.

This 15th-century building with some 13th-century features became England's first paper mill in the early 16th century and is now a hotel and atmospheric pub. It makes a pleasant destination for a 20-minute walk along Town Path southwest of the town center.

Massive earthwork ramparts on a bare sweep of Wiltshire countryside are all that remain of this impressive Iron Age hill fort, which was successively taken over by Romans, Saxons, and Normans. You can still see the ruins of a castle built by William the Conqueror in 1070 within the earthworks. The site was still fortified in Tudor times, though the population had mostly decamped in the 13th century to New Sarum, or Salisbury. Clamber over the huge banks to take in the far-reaching views to Salisbury Cathedral.

With a commanding position over the harbor, the remains of this medieval castle are surrounded by what is believed to be the most complete set of Roman walls and the best preserved Roman fort north of the Alps, built in the 3rd century to fend off Saxon pirates. On its completion in the mid-12th century, the castle was appropriated by Henry II and remained a royal residence until the 17th century. From the keep's central tower you can take in sweeping views of the harbor and coastline.

Here, an unrivaled collection of historic ships includes the HMS Warrior (1860), Britain's first iron-clad battleship, as well as the HMS Victory, which served as the flagship of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson, Britain's most celebrated naval hero, at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) and is still the ceremonial flagship of Britain's First Sea Lord. You can inspect the cramped gun decks, visit the cabin where Nelson met his officers, and stand on the spot where he was mortally wounded by a French sniper. There's also an interactive gallery that explores the ship's history and audio guides to take along during your visit.

The National Museum of the Royal Navy has extensive exhibits about Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, a fine collection of painted figureheads, and galleries of paintings and mementos recalling naval history from King Alfred to the present. Action Stations, an interactive attraction, gives insight into life in the modern Royal Navy and lets you test your sea legs with tasks such as piloting boats through gales. Boathouse 4 is a training center for traditional boatbuilding skills required to maintain and build wooden boats; it contains an exhibition that explores the role of smaller wooden boats in the Navy's history. HMS M.33 is one of just three British warships from World War I still in existence. You should allow one or two days to tour all the attractions in the Historic Dockyard. The entrance fee includes a boat ride around the harbor.

One of Salisbury's best-known landmarks, the hexagonal Poultry Cross is the last remaining of the four original medieval market crosses that gave shelter to market traders (other crosses indicated the dairy, wool, and livestock markets). A cross on the site was first mentioned in 1307, though the current structure dates from the late 15th century. The canopy and flying buttresses were added in 1852.

Owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and under the aegis of King Charles III since he was Prince of Wales, this development in a traditional architectural vernacular style showcases his vision of urban planning, environmental sustainability, and community living. Zoning is strict, with an emphasis on conservation and energy efficiency; private houses coexist with shops, offices, small-scale factories, and leisure facilities. Dorchester's Farmers' Market is held in the Queen Mother's Square the first Saturday of the month. Poundbury, a mile west of Dorchester on the B3150, has attracted the ire of modernist architects, but any properties for sale are quickly snapped up.

Here you can learn about submarine history and the rigors of life below the waves with the help of family-friendly interactive games. The highlight is a tour of the HMS Alliance, the only surviving World War II–era submarine in the United Kingdom, and the midget-class HMS X24, from the cramped living quarters to the engine rooms. Also on the large site is the first Royal Navy sub, Holland 1, built in 1901, and a Biber, a German WWII midget submarine. From Portsmouth Harbour, take the ferry to Gosport and walk along Millennium Promenade past the huge sundial clock. From April to October, an hourly free waterbus runs from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

Perched on East Cliff, this lavish late-Victorian villa overflows with sculpture, paintings, and artifacts, including cases of butterflies and an exquisite suit of Japanese armor—just a few of the treasures collected from around the world by Merton and Annie Russell-Cotes, a widely traveled Victorian couple. The house, a combination of Italian Renaissance and Scottish Baronial styles, with added Moorish-, Japanese-, and French-themed rooms, was designed to showcase the collection. The museum also hosts temporary exhibitions and has a small landscaped garden and café. 

Opposite the cathedral's west front, this excellent museum of regional history is in the King's House, parts of which date to the 15th century (James I stayed here in 1610 and 1613). The history of the area from prehistoric times through the Norman Conquest is explored in the Wessex gallery, which houses some of Britain's most important archaeological finds and also has Stonehenge-related exhibits that provide helpful background information for a visit to the megaliths. Also on view are collections of local costumes dating back 250 years, outstanding British ceramics, and Turner watercolors, all dwarfed by the 12-foot Salisbury Giant, a 13-century pageant figure, and his companion hobbyhorse, Hob Nob. A cozy café is in one of the oldest sections of the building.

This small market town, the model for "Shaston" in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, sits on a ridge overlooking Blackmore Vale—you can catch a sweeping view of the surrounding countryside from the top of Gold Hill, a steep street lined with cottages so picturesque it was used in an iconic TV commercial to evoke the quintessential British village of yore. There's an information hub in Morrisons Daily Supermarket on Bell Street. Shaftesbury is 20 miles west of Salisbury and 15 miles east of Sherborne.

Rising 130 feet and comparable in height and volume to the roughly contemporaneous Egyptian pyramids, Europe's largest man-made mound was built around 2400 BC. Though there have been periodic excavations of the mound since the 17th century, its original purpose remains unknown. The viewing area, less than 1 mile east of Avebury, is open only during daylight hours, but there's no direct access to the mound itself.

The focal point of the lively Gunwharf Quays development of shops and bars, the Spinnaker Tower is a striking addition to Portsmouth's skyline. The slender structure evokes a mast with a billowing sail, and rises to a height of 558 feet. An elevator whisks you to three viewing platforms 330 feet high for thrilling all-around views of the harbor and up to 23 miles beyond. There's a café on one of the viewing platforms (admission with prebooked High Tea only) and a bar on another (admission with £10 prebooking redeemable against the cost of drinks).

Lyndhurst's High Street is dominated by this imposing redbrick Victorian Gothic church, notable for its stained-glass windows designed by Pre-Raphaelites William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, as well as Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, a large fresco by Frederick Leighton. Fans of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland should note that Alice Hargreaves (née Liddell), the inspiration for the fictional Alice, is buried in the churchyard.

It's easy to recognize this parish church by its 200-foot-high tower and spire. Lewis Tregonwell, founder and developer of Bournemouth, is buried in the churchyard. Also buried here is Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein and wife of the great Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose heart is interred with her in the elaborate Shelley family vault. Mary Shelley's mother, the feminist philosopher and writer Mary Wollstonecraft, is buried in the Shelley vault, too.

Dating back to 1226 and initially built as a chapel for the workmen who would go on to construct the cathedral, this still-active church contains a rare medieval Doom painting (a term for paintings in medieval churches of Judgment Day), a fresco that is considered to be the best preserved of the few such works left in Britain; it's also the largest. Created around 1470 and covering the chancel arch, the scenes of heaven and hell served to instill the fear of damnation into the congregation. Restored in 2019, it's best seen on a spring or summer evening when the light through the west window illuminates the details.

Train enthusiasts love this largely volunteer-run railroad that makes 25-minute, 6-mile scenic trips, with steam (and some diesel) locomotives pulling vintage train carriages across the Isle of Purbeck—actually a peninsula. Trips begin from Norden in the center and go to the seaside town of Swanage via Corfe Castle. Small, pretty stations with flower baskets, painted signs, and water bowls for dogs add to the excursion's charm. Trains leave approximately every 80 minutes in low season (steam only), and every 45 minutes in high season (alternating steam and diesel).

This 10-mile-long scenic railroad line named for the area's watercress beds is reserved for steam locomotives and takes in both the highest station in southern England and several locomotive restoration workshops. It starts at Alresford (8 miles northeast of Winchester by A31 and B3046), where you'll find some antiques shops and Georgian houses, and runs to Alton.

This 1½-mile path was once a prehistoric processional way leading to the stone circles at Avebury. It was lined with 100 standing stones spaced 80 feet apart. However, only the stones on the half mile nearest the main monument survive intact. The lost stones are marked with concrete obelisks.

Located atop the last of the city's fortified medieval gateways, this atmospheric museum was a debtor's prison for 150 years and now holds a motley assortment of items relating to Tudor and Stuart times. There's a stunning painted ceiling from 1554 (created to commemorate the wedding of Mary Tudor and Phillip II of Spain in the cathedral) as well as walls inscribed with 16th- through 18th-century graffiti by former prisoners. Child-size replicas of authentic 16th-century armor that can be tried on, as well as the opportunity to make brass rubbings, make it popular with kids. You can take in a panoramic view of Winchester from the roof.

Although there has been a church here since the 8th century, the current building, with its crenellated and pinnacled twin towers, was built between 1120 and 1180. The nave reflects these Norman origins in its zigzag molding interspersed with carved heads. Several Gothic components were added later, as were fine Victorian geometric floor tiles and stained glass windows. Don't miss the late-17th-century chained library (where books are chained to shelves), one of the first public libraries in Britain and the country's second-largest chained library. Its collection includes a 14th-century manuscript and a 1522 book with a title page designed by Hans Holbein. Also look out for the pre-Copernican astronomical clock (it has a blue ball earth with the sun going around it), which dates to before the 15th century. It's on the inside wall of the west tower.

This prestigious "public" (meaning private) school—Britain's oldest in continuous operation, with several buildings still in use after six centuries—was founded in 1382 by Bishop William of Wykeham, whose alabaster tomb sits in a chapel dedicated to him in Winchester Cathedral. The wooden ceiling of the school's 14th-century chapel is notable for its delicate fan vaulting. The boys wearing monk-style cassocks are "scholars"—students holding academic scholarships. The campus can only be visited by one-hour afternoon tours that take in the Museum, the Treasury, the medieval Chamber Court, the Chapel, the College Hall, Cloisters, and the 17th Century School building; college events can cause cancellations, so call ahead. In 2025, the college will open 8 College Street, the house in which Jane Austen died, and host an exhibition about the writer and Winchester. The house will be open Wednesdays and Saturdays June through August; tickets must be prebooked on the website.