The church is dedicated to St Nicholas with its original Norman doorway, apart from this it is plain an small with some parts around 800 years old. Inside there are memorials to the Clavells of Smedmore.

Kimmeridge Bay, looking down on Chapman's Pool from Hounds Tout Photograph kindly submitted by Jean Harding, Poole, Dorset

Smedmore house which is made from Purbeck stone lies a mile away and has a large rounded bow window and has been owned by the same family ever since 1391, and the Dutch furniture which is Marquetry is still in use today and came from a wealthy Dutch family whose most distinguished member was a soldier who William of Orange in 1692, bestowed the title Earl of Athlone .

The oil barons have struck black gold here! A bore was sunk here in the 1950s and oil was brought to the surface and this became the most productive single well onshore in the country and produced around 10,000 gallons each week, and it is now a familiar part of the landscape to see several pumps or Nodding Donkeys on the top of the cliffs. Visible for miles around is Clavell Tower which is the only man made intervention in the wide sweep of the Bay, part ot the stretch of coastline awarded World Heritage designation.

The tower was built by the Revd john Richards Clavell of Smedmore as an observatory and folly and there are three storeys and a Tuscan colonade.

Hardy courted Eliza Bright Nicols here in the town and he used it as a frontispiece for is Wessex Poems and more recently P. D. James featured it in his novel The Black Tower.

In the 1930s the tower was gutted by fire and left derelict but in recent years it has been in danger of falling into the sea due to coastal erosion so the Clavell Tower Trust and Smedmore Estate was approached Landmark for advice and help  and an emergency appeal was launched in 2004 and work is now underway with the aid of various denotations including the Heritage Lottery Fund to move the tower about 50 feet back from the crumbling cliff edge

Kimmeridge Bay which is shown above is on the edge of the Smedmore Estate and this can be got to by a toll road from the village. This is where the famous Kimmeridge Clay is found, a soft type of rock that is ideal for fossils and the grey shale was mined here by the Romans and Blackstone was polished and made into furniture as well as ornaments.

The coastline form Lulworth Cove to Kimmeridge Bay lies within the Lulworth Army Ranges which are part of the AFV (Armoured Fighting Vehicles) Gunnery School and access is strictly restricted to specific time due to safety reasons.