Driving in Southern England

I have driven to and around Cornwall and the West a number of times. I think what you want to do is do-able but a little tight. you may have to set your priorities- what do you really want to see and what can you skip, then plan accordingly. Two days in salisbury, leaving only five to do everything else seems impractical. You probably will have to some of your manor house visits and the walk even with 7 days. What I would do is decide what i really want to do and sketch out a path with those, then along the way see how your timetable is working out. The Cornwall, dartmoor, Somerset section really should be done using side roads. Either wayyou wont have much time in bath, if any

We have been to Cornwall / Devon / Dorset several times. Your time might be more efficiently organized if you could take the train to the most western point where you can rent a car (St. Ives or Penzance maybe?), then zig-zag your way back east, visiting all of the points that interest you, then returning your car at the eastern end - Bath or Salisbury or Winchester or even LHR. Some places in the southwest that we enjoyed, besides those on your list, are Zennor, the Merry Maidens stone circle, Lost Gardens of Heligan, and Restormel Castle.........Two interesting old hotels we found which are right on the coast were Housel Bay (at the tip of the Lizard) and Headlands Hotel (near Tintagel and St. Isaac.)

I have no idea where/what Chawton Manor is, but will assume it's not out of the way. A gut shot is that you're looking at six or seven hundred miles in five days, just to get to Bath. At best that's two hours of driving per day (maybe closer to three), so you're going to have to get an early start each day to be able to see much of anything. Highclere and Stonehenge are both going to take a couple of hours. The coastal path is a bit over six hundred miles, some of it has a good bit of elevation change. If you find a flat spot you can walk a couple of miles from the car (and a couple back). With poking around, that's probably two hours. You can walk the causeway, if you catch the tides right, walk to the top of the Mount and be back to the car in two hours, but you'll have to hustle. I'm guessing you might spend four hours doing it, plus whatever time it takes to get there from Penzance or everwhere you're staying. The best, most simple drive through the Dartmore National Park is down the middle along the SW -NE axis. From Exeter to Yelverton that's about an hour and a half. You can save some daylight by going to a night performance at the Minnack (and that's when it's most spectacular, anyway). If I saw only one thing, it would be the Minnack. If I had a thousand things to see in the area, I still wouldn't make it to Cheddar Gorge.

What you propose is quite doable...You can probably do Salisbury in a Day with the Cathedral with the Magna Carta as the main visit. Check the National Trust UK site for other properties in this part of the country and route your drive by some of their reccomendations. You can get one of their Overseas Visitor Passes on line and save some money if you are an ambitious sightseer like me.
English Heritage has some of the Archeological sites. My ancestors were from the Valley of the White Horse which you can see as a giant hillside Chalk Drawing and also the Cerne Giant. Bon Voyage

Have a play with this route planner. It gives you options eg the "pretty" route, the direct route and routes avoiding major roads etc. http://www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp#

Nancy, In my experience in driving in various locations around England, the trips always seem to take longer than expected. Especially in driving the smaller country roads, it's difficult to maintain any speed as I was frequently passing through small villages, some of which had a large digital speed board reminding me what my speed was (as I recall, the speed is 30 mph through the small towns). With such an ambitious Itinerary, a GPS would be a really good idea, along with a good Map. I didn't really have a look at the specifics of your trip, but the Trip Planner suggested in the previous reply should help you get this sorted. Happy travels!

Thanks to everyone who responded. Ed, Chawton Cottage in Hampshire was Jane Austen's home for a period of time. We are meeting friends in the Cotswolds and then going back to Bath to visit some Jane Austen-related sites so are not worried about seeing Bath the first time around. I like the idea of train to St. Ives or Penzance. Am having troubling finding a car rental company allowing a one-way rental. Anybody have any ideas? Nancy

Hertz has a location in Truro at the train station - did you try them?

Nancy - This past September, I rented a car in Penzance through Auto Europe and returned it to Manchester Airport about 10 days later. No problem whatsoever....

As Linda says, use the theaa.com trip planner website to check on miles between sites. I always use that and it lets me know how reasonable my driving plans are.