Clouds Hill

Clouds Hill is a small early 19th-century cottage near Wareham in Dorset. It stands alone on twenty miles of heathland beside a river valley filled with wild rhododendrons. The cottage has colourwashed brick walls and a tiled roof. It was probably built in 1808 as a forester’s or labourer’s home. T. E. Lawrence rebuilt it between 1922 and 1934 as his private retreat. The lintel above the door carries a Greek inscription that reads ‘why worry’. Lawrence first rented the cottage in 1923 while stationed at nearby Bovington Camp. He bought it two years later and used it as a holiday home. He described it as an earthly paradise and kept it simple, with no electric lights and only three rooms. The eating room was lined with asbestos covered in aluminium foil, and his gramophone stood in the music room above. A ship’s porthole from the HMS Tiger was installed in 1935. Inside, visitors find the cottage largely as Lawrence left it at his death. The book room holds his leather divan and the music room still has the gramophone with its huge amplifier horn. An exhibition tells the story of his life and displays many of his possessions. A painting by Henry Scott Tuke shows a soldier cadet who may be Lawrence at Newporth Beach. Outside, the Lawrence of Arabia Trail links the cottage with Bovington’s Tank Museum and his grave in Moreton churchyard.