The National Trust booklet ‘The Cerne Giant & Dorset Hill-Forts (2000) which is definately available at the Kingston Lacy house and might be available at other Dorset properties, gives the following directions to the hill fort at Hod Hill, “From Blandford Forum take the Lower Shaftesbury Road (A350) and beyond Stourpaine village turn left to Child Okeford. The Hod Hill car park is about 1km along this road on the left. The footpath from the car park follows a steep incline first through woodland and then along the edge of a field to the north-west corner of the hill-fort”.
It adds that the name ‘Hod Hill’ is Old English for hood or shelter and that ‘hill’ was added to Hod in the 18th Century. The earliest documented reference to the place name dates from 1270.