85 Best Sights in The South, England

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, this medieval castle is 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.

The city's most impressive attraction includes an unrivaled collection of historic ships, including the HMS Warrior (1860), Britain's first iron-clad battleship, as well as the Royal Navy's best-known warship, 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 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, and the all-attractions ticket is valid for one year.

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 the Prince of Wales, this development in a traditional architectural vernacular style showcases Prince Charles's 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.

With an emphasis on local archaeological finds (largely Roman and Iron Age), costumes, and history, this museum in an Elizabethan townhouse 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, where you'll find displays of agricultural and horticultural tools.

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 only surviving World War II submarines in the United Kingdom, the HMS Alliance 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 water bus runs from the 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 the Russell-Cotes, a widely traveled Victorian couple. The house, a combination of Italian Renaissance and Scottish Baronial, with added Moorish-, Japanese-, and French-themed rooms, was designed to showcase the collection. There's also a small landscaped garden and café. The museum hosts temporary exhibitions as well, such as ones devoted to the legacy of the Pre-Raphaelites or to the role of fans in Victorian society.

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. Shaftesbury is 20 miles west of Salisbury and 15 miles east of Sherborne.

As much as the golden hamstone exterior, majestic tower, and fine flying buttresses impress, the glory of Sherborne Abbey is the delicate 15th-century fan vaulting that extends the length of the soaring nave and choir. Some features from the original 8th-century cathedral, like a Saxon doorway in the northwest corner, still remain. If you're lucky, you might hear "Great Tom," one of the heaviest bells in the world, pealing out from the bell tower. Guided tours are offered from April through September on Saturday (10:30 am) and Sunday (11:15 am), plus Tuesday (10:30 am) and Friday (2 pm) through November. Tours from December through March need to be made by prior arrangement.

Rising 130 feet and comparable in height and volume to the roughly contemporary Egyptian pyramids (about 2400 BC), this is the largest man-made mound in Europe. 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.

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 a large fresco of the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins 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.

This parish church is easily recognizable by its 200-foot-high tower and spire. Lewis Tregonwell, founder and developer of Bournemouth, is buried in the churchyard. Here, too, is the burial place of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein and wife of the great Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose heart is buried with her in the elaborate Shelley family vault, as is the author's mother, the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft.

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" of Judgment Day, a fresco that is considered to be one of the best preserved and most complete of the few such works left in Britain (it's also the largest). Created around 1475 and covering the chancel arch, the scenes of heaven and hell served to instill the fear of damnation into the congregation. 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 70 to 120 minutes in low season, and every 45 minutes in high season.

Lyme Regis is famous for its curving stone harbor breakwater, the Cobb, built by King Edward I in the 13th century to improve the harbor. The Duke of Monmouth landed here in 1685 during his ill-fated attempt to overthrow his uncle, James II, and the Cobb figured prominently in the movie of John Fowles's novel The French Lieutenant's Woman, as well as in the 1995 film version of Jane Austen's Persuasion. There's a sweeping coastal view to Chesil Beach to the east.

Here three galleries tell the absorbing story of the planning and preparation for the invasion of Europe during WWII and the actual landings on D-Day—June 6, 1944—through an eclectic range of exhibits including maps, uniforms, and even the last surviving actual landing craft tank, as well as filmed testimonies from those who were there. The museum's centerpiece is the Overlord Embroidery ("Overlord" was the invasion's code name), a 272-foot-long embroidered cloth with 34 panels illustrating the history of the operation, from the Battle of Britain in 1940 to victory in Normandy in 1944.

Opposite the cathedral's west front, this excellent museum 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 where Stonehenge-related exhibits provide helpful background information for a visit to the famous 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 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.

Lined with what remains of the original 100 standing stones spaced 80 feet apart, this 1½-mile path was once a prehistoric processional way leading to the stone circles at Avebury. Only the half mile nearest the main monument survives intact. The lost stones are marked with concrete obelisks.

This atmospheric museum atop the last of the city's fortified medieval gateways 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 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 still 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 (it has a blue ball earth with the sun going around it) astronomical clock, 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 own 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 tours that take in the Museum, Treasury, Chamber Court, Chapel, College Hall, Cloisters, and the 17th Century School building; tours are available daily, but are sometimes canceled due to college events, so call ahead.