This year’s Tour of Britain cycle race will visit Verwood for the first time in its history this year.

It’s also the first time the event will pass through Dorset, with a stage planned from West Bay to Ferndown on Saturday 10th September 2022.

Riders will enter Verwood from the north on the B3081 at Station Road, travelling along the B3072 from Home Farm Road, along Manor Road, past the Roundabout with Burnbake Road, and out past Potterne Way towards Three Legged Cross.

Stage seven will take the riders from West Bay to Ferndown via a 180-kilometre (112-mile) route. The course will initially parallel with the West Dorset Heritage coast before passing through Dorchester, West Lulworth and Corfe Castle, before heading inland towards Wareham, Milton Abbas and Wimborne Minster.

The noted climbs of Whiteway Hill, near East Lulworth, Bulbarrow Hill and Okeford Hill all feature along the route, which culminates on Ferndown’s Victoria Road.

Mick Bennett, Tour of Britain race director, said: “The eyes of the cycling world will be on Dorset come Saturday 10 September and I know that both the world-class riders competing and the huge TV audience the Tour of Britain attracts will be blown away by the sheer beauty of the county. But more than that, the challenging terrain will make for a thrilling day of racing, with the battle for the stage victory in Ferndown likely to be fierce!”

While it may be the modern race’s first visit to Dorset, the county welcomed the Milk Race – a semi-professional forerunner of the Tour of Britain – on multiple occasions during the 1970s and 1980s.