The Smugglers Inn is a thatched pub at Osmington Mills, in a fold of the cliffs above the beach, on the run of Dorset coast between Weymouth and Lulworth. Parts of the building are said to date to the 13th century.
The name is not decoration. This cove was one of the main landing points for contraband on this coast, and the pub is rumoured to have been the headquarters of a French smuggler called Pierre Latour, known locally as French Peter. Sources cannot agree on whether that was the 17th or the 18th century, and rumoured is doing real work in the sentence either way. The pub’s own owners hedge it the same way we are. But the geography does support the story: a steep-sided valley, winding lanes, and a sheltered beach at the bottom of them.
Outside there is a tiered terrace with a stream running through it and a view across to the Isle of Portland and the boats working into Weymouth Harbour. You can walk here from Weymouth along the cliff path in about an hour, which is the correct way to earn the first pint.
