Walk needed to be diverted on Purbeck Way – fortunately walkers not harmed but this needs reporting to HSE to protect others

Incident number: 1089

Response ID: 314,115,653

Date of incident: 20.04.25

Location: Purbeck Way, between Corfe Castle and Worth Matravers, Dorset. Grid ref SY 966799

Status: Couple with no dog on PRoW

Purbeck Rambler reports that whilst attempting to walk ta section of the Purbeck way their walk was stopped by dozens of cows and calves blocking a gate entrance.

They report “The cows were of decent size – certainly not newborn with a very muddy slope upwards. This caused a bottleneck with cows moving into copse.

It was way too risky to enter field at that point. Waited half an hour. Bottom gate clear, but at the top of the field, dozens of cows and calves bottlenecked on the footpath, cows on banks either side. Just reporting it because there was no way round them and we had to climb over and under barbed wire to rejoin the Purbeck Way further on.

Still, that led us to wild garlic, so not all bad.”