Clear day...nothing like today

The day dawned cold, windy and with occasional wet bits in the air. I decided to go for a stroll down to Hive Beach. Up and over the bronze age barrow and down to the beach where a fisherman sat facing the rough seas and spitting wind. The tide was up so I decided to head inland. Across a horse manured paddock, spying the gypsy caravans safe in their corner of a faraway field, and down into the town of Burton Bradstock.

I decided to visit the church. So it was up Donkey Lane and into St Mary the Virgin. I could rephrase that last sentence but I don’t think I will. A lovely squat little church, one small bit of which dates to the 12th century. In fact the bottom of the font. There was a church noted in Domesday in 1086 but there’s nothing of that left. It has been changed and renovated progressively through the ages. Sweet church.

It was then on to Burton Cliff and a stroll along the coastal footpath back to the lodge. I passed a woman on the way, the wind and rain lashing both of us. She was being led by a happy if somewhat saturated terrier and was wearing a bright yellow raincoat and one of those sailor type rain hats. As we passed each other, I said, “Lovely morning for it,” and she replied “Certainly is.” Aliens would so have no idea.

Barrington Court is an odd National Trust property. Firstly it’s in a difficult spot which means my navigation took us on a series of wrong turns and awkward trips down high hedged lanes, annoying Mirinda. Actually I can’t really blame Barrington Court. I just sent us down a wrong turning at a roundabout.

The other odd thing about Barrington Court is Barrington Court itself. It isn’t really a property that has a history inside. The guy who originally had it built was granted a baronetcy or earldom or whatever and immediately set about organising a big parade through London with banners saying “I AM the man!” and then had the house built. He soon went totally bankrupt and was flung in prison for living beyond his means.

Barrington Court, Somerset

A lot later the National Trust was given the house. At this time (1907) the house was inhabited by chickens and owls. The Trust set about repairing it. It cost a fortune. Lyle of Tate & Lyle Sugar took a lease on the property so he could store a lot of his collection of wooden walls in it. This eventually became too costly for him so he left his walls and opted out of the lease.

It is still a bit of a white elephant for the Trust and they still use it as an example of a bad acquisition – “Remember Barrington Court,” they still say when considering an expensive purchase. These days, along with Lyle’s extensive though unrecorded wooden walls, Barrington Court is used as a showcase for the work of Stuart Interiors. They make reproductions of Stuart furnishings. They also do a lot of work for the Trust in renovation and such. Their craftsmen are very good! Repro usually sounds pretty bad but this stuff is excellent. You can see it. At Barrington Court.

Fantastically, the newest staircase at Barrington Court won the Best Staircase Award in 2002. We walked up it. It’s all very pale oak with sweet lines and smooth treads. Truly deserving of the award. All that remains is to find out who was the compère for the awards ceremony and if it was televised. And, if it was, how I missed it!

Lunch was excellent. Though I think the trades description people could have a case against the toad in the hole which was more like snag in a bucket. It was delicious though. And the baked egg custard tart, which the waitress asked if we’d like custard on, which it certainly didn’t need. The beer was good too.

The weather was always a bit on edge today but since arriving back at the lodge, the windows have been lashed with wind and rain and the clouds have descended. I am listening to Mirinda’s guitar practice against a background hiss of gale force wind.

The Rain Dance shower in the Fossil Apartment at Chesil Beach Lodge is the best shower I have EVER had on holiday. Imagine standing under a waterfall. Absolute heaven. I do not want to go home.

Dorchester, on the other hand, does not fill me with such keen enthusiasm. Mirinda read somewhere that it’s supposed to be Britain’s prettiest small town. I’ve seen many prettier. Sorry, Dorchester, I found you dull and uninspiring and a little bit rough and dirty. But let’s look at the couple of good things. I’m ignoring the car park where it costs £1 an hour for the first four hours then £4 an hour after that. We only stayed four hours.

Costa’s
For a change the service at Costa’s was excellent. This is one of the few instances for me but could have been because I was the only customer. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. A little later Mirinda told me she found a Starbucks. It’s a shame I’ll not be comparing them.

St Peter’s Church
A nice enough building but all too extensively rebuilt by the Victorians. This is something I tend to find in town churches. As they have a bit more money they tend to be renovated more. This means a lot of the original fabric of the church vanishes out of sight. A shame as it can leave a church soulless. Not that St Peter’s was soulless! It was fine, just a bit bland.

St Peters church, Dorchester

St Peter’s is, in fact a 15th century church and a good example of the perpendicular style. The restoration took place from 1856-7 and some refurbishing from 1894-7. In 1967 a street was widened and a boundary wall which previously had held big iron spikes for the heads of traitors, was taken down. The spikes (or iron finial) were put in the museum next door. I could find no mention on the fate of the heads.

Most of the stained glass is quite young and nearly all of it depicts St Peter’s antics. The pulpit is quite nice being a lovely example of 17th century carving. The font dates back to the Victorian restoration and, sadly, the original has been lost.

The Old Crown Court and Cells
Firstly, the cells were not open today so we couldn’t see them. Mirinda dutifully reported to the front desk and the receptionist very nicely gave us an information sheet and showed us the way. The court is in the middle of the council chambers and people wander through and around giving it all an air of Alice in Wonderland. This could have been because of the large white rabbit with a fob watch who pushed by me a couple of times. Or the cut-out version of Judge Jeffreys who looked about to yell “OFF WITH HIS HEAD!”

Courtroom, Dorchester Crown Court

It was here, in 1685 that Judge Jeffreys held the Bloody Assizes. It was also here that the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six Dorset farm labourers, were sentenced to transportation for seven years on 17th March 1834, for forming a ‘friendly society’. They basically began the Trade Union Movement in England. More on this later, when we visit Tolpuddle itself!

The courtroom was a lot like the Judge’s House we visited on our Ludlow trip.

Dorset Museum
Mirinda went for a wander up the shops while I did a whole circuit of the museum. It is excellent as museums go except, perhaps the price. This is interesting on a couple of levels. Firstly, museums are generally free in the UK. You can wander into the British Museum, Farnham Museum, Guildford Museum, etc whenever you feel like it, all free of charge. The Dorset Museum, however, will cost you £6.50! This may sound a lot. It is. To be fair you CAN come back as many times as you like in a year. I managed to see everything in an hour. Not sure why I’d go back unless I was studying something. Anyway, it’s not like me to quibble about entrance fees but I did find it interesting.

Skeletons of Britons killed by Roman ballista bolt at Maiden Castle, Dorset Museum, Dorchester

Inside, the museum has a sort of Victorian Pier feel to it. All colourful columns and multiple floors around a central space. Very friendly and welcoming. There were lots of interesting though pretty unconnected, cases around the walls, showing various Dorset ‘things’. This included a very odd statue of a man called ‘Steeplejack’. I’m not going to try to explain it but it looked very odd.

Upstairs there is a sizeable archaeological section with lots of artefacts from Maiden Castle and the Roman Town House as well as flint tools, and pottery. Apart from being a little warm – they had a big fan going full tilt in one room – it was all very well presented and I did enjoy it.

There is also a writer’s room which I just walked through on my way to the geology room. This was a disappointment. It was obviously created with children in mind. Lots of stuff about dinosaurs and little about rock. This is the Jurassic coastline after all! OK, there were dinosaurs but there’s some pretty important rocks as well. To be fair they had a lot of fossils but not nearly enough rocks! Something that annoyed me were the almost constant screeches from a suspended pterodactyl.

Lunch
Pizza and beer is always gong to be good but served by an Italian in the oldest house in Dorchester where Judge Jeffreys stayed, just tops it off.

The Roman Town House
This is a wonderful place. Left in situ with a small specially constructed building to protect the mosaics and hypocaust, it sits behind the council chambers surrounded by a busy road. There are big boards explaining everything and a big self service machine that dispenses guide books. Except it didn’t. Not today. A pity.

Well worth a visit though and I sent Dawn a photo on my camera just to make her a bit jealous.

Roman town house, Dorchester

Max Gate
This is a little way outside Roman Dorchester and alongside the extremely noisy A35. It was where Thomas Hardy (that’ll be the writer, not the old school re-former or the one who kissed Nelson) lived. He designed the house and extended it. His wife lived, Mrs Rochester-like in a small room at the top of the house, under the eaves while he lived in his study. Then, after she died, he wrote lots of love poems about her which his second wife had to type up. She was probably a bit peeved about that.

The house is ‘sort of’ owned by the National Trust in that someone is renting it and only a few rooms are open to the public only a few days a week. Apart from the noise of the road which obviously would not have bothered Hardy, it’s a sweet house with a rambling style of numerous additions over the years. The sort of thing the council wouldn’t let you do any more.

And so, Dorchester. That was it. On the way back we were caught in traffic behind two old gypsy caravans being pulled by two equally old horses.

Back at the Fossil apartment I wandered down to the beach for a stroll in the biting, freezing wind while Mirinda had a nap. I saw a lot of Fuller’s Earth Clay.

Abbotsbury is a cute little chocolate box lid sort of town. According to our guidebook a lot of the streets were definitely NEVER meant for cars. Though not nearly as bad as such places as Shere, it does feel a little bit tight on most of the back roads. Bascially that means ALL of the roads.

Abbotsbury is famous for quite a few things. The one thing that really stands out is the swannery. This has been in existence for at least 600 years when the Benedictine monks of St Peter decided to corral them. The Fleet is the perfect spot for swans, apparently and the monks had to do little work to maintain the habitat. Interestingly Benedictine monks are strict vegetarians. They do eat fish, however. They ate swan as well which they justified by saying it tasted very strongly of fish. When the church decided to eat only fish on Friday I’m pretty sure the scriptures didn’t read “…fish and anything that tastes strongly of fish…”.

Feeding time is the best time to be at the swannery and, as unlikely as it sounds, we managed to get there with plenty of time to watch. My recommendation would be to arrive a good hour before feeding time (12 and 4 daily) so you can have a slow wander down to the feeding area.

The swans ready for lunch at the Swannery, Abbotsbury

A lot of people did the same as us and there soon gathered a sizeable crowd. The swans were gathering and with a bare five minutes to go, a mass movement of white feathered big birds started heading shoreward. When the two guys with the food arrived, the swans started going mad.

A warder gave us a chat about the swans and roughly how many there are (600) and what they eat (eel grass) and why the Canadian Geese are ostracised by the swans (they really hate them) while his mate took buckets of seed from a barrow and started throwing it at the swans.

They then invited any kids in who wanted to feed the swans. A Schumanian next to me said to the guy “My daughter, she doesn’t speak English, is ok” and the guy said “Doesn’t matter”. I assume the swans don’t understand any language but the free meals each day.

Fortunately the swans didn’t carry off any of the kids so it was then deemed safe for any adults to have a go. I was surprised that Mirinda didn’t as she has a thing for feeding birdies. Mind you, you wouldn’t want one of these landing on your hand to peck at a bit of cake!

Apart from the swannery, there is also this big pond which is a duck decoy. It is roughly square with these netted tunnels in each corner. The idea is for the ducks to see the pond, land on it then gradually (with the aid of tempting morsels of food) make their way along the tunnels until they reach a trap at the other end. Apparently it works quite well. They tried tempting the ducks with these specially trained dogs called pipers but it was just easier and cheaper to tempt them with bits of mouldy old bread. Sadly this effectively killed off the piper breeding trade.

I think it terribly important to report the existence of Bum Point Hide. Unfortunately you can’t just go there. You have to ask. I didn’t.

The Fleet, itself, is a shallow lagoon between Chesil Beach and the mainland and is a nature reserve. It’s an odd and narrow strip of water stretching the length of Chesil and reaching only 900 yards at it’s widest spot. The water is never very deep either. Although shallow, narrow and brackish, the lagoon supports an awful lot of animal and plant life. There’s over a hundred species of plants alone! And, of course, heaps of eel grass.

In the heart of Abbotsbury there’s a couple of duelling tea shops and a pub. All three promise Sunday roasts. The one we went into (the School House Tea Shop) had run out by 1pm – roasts started at 12. The tearoom was very full but we were shown into the completely empty overflow room, which had about six tables ready for use.

Abbotsbury High Street - the school house tea rooms

A couple walked in after us and were quite dismayed at the absence of a roast. She suggested jacket potatoes and he said, quite mysteriously, “Baked potato’s no good for you!” She mumbled something about the ploughman’s lunch but eventually they just sort of drifted out and back to the street, wishing us luck as they went. When the waitress returned, she didn’t seem too bothered that they had left.

Another couple came in and were roundly told off for sitting at a table in the overflow room when there were three free tables next door! They decided to head for the garden, though I think he wanted to go somewhere else. He also wished us luck.

We weren’t that bothered and had sandwiches. The staff were a bit rude, though not to us. Overall, the place had an air of exasperation about it. I do not recommend it!

By the way, the School house Tea Shop was NEVER a school house. It was actually the head teacher’s house from 1863. The school is next door and was built about a hundred years earlier.

People fly kites from the top of the barrow across from the window of our apartment. Very cute. We went for a stroll along the cliff path down to the shingle beach to watch the mad beach fisherfolk about their jolly fun. We even saw one catch a fish. I think it was the first fish he’d ever caught as he whooped and whistled like a loon, yelling out to everyone and pointing to the small silver thing on the end of his line.

I commented on the lovely geological stratigraphy at the rock face but Mirinda had turned off and walked away before the end of the first sentence.

Mirinda above the beach at Burton Bradstock at sunset

In Burton Bradstock there is a pub with a recommended restaurant. Deciding to give it a try, we popped down to find that it had run out of beer – that’s real beer not that fizzy rubbish – which seems to be something that’s following me around this year. All was not lost as the barmaid sold me a bottle of Old Peculiar which she was keeping for her dad. Sadly, I do not recommend the restaurant. In saying that, the crème brulee was excellent and made on the premises. On the whole, the food is fine for a Sunday pub lunch kind of place but hardly warrants either the recommendation or the big sign proclaiming itself a brilliant place for a meal!

Burton Bradstock was well known for its skills in rope making, once upon a time but then along came Bridport and kicked it into touch. Things looked grim for poor little Burton Bradstock. Then it discovered a bit of flax-swingling and everything came up roses. In order to create the best swingled flax, the Grove Mill was built in 1803. More about this I do not know. On the other hand, Lorna thinks it’s the name of her solicitor.

Burton Bradstock

It is to the outskirts of this great flax-swingling village that we have come. At what was once the coast guard station, we found a very comfortable and beautifully presented self catering room, among lots of others, that reminded me of the hotel in Ballestrande but with views of the sea rather than up a fjord.

Our room has its own little entrance through a private garden room. Just outside the garden room is the garden and just in the garden is a stile which leads almost straight onto the South West Coast Path. From the windows of our room, you can see a bronze age burial mound – we climbed to the top just before the sun went down and looked at the splendid views towards Hive Beach and way out to sea. Gorgeous.

The shower looks very interesting and I can’t wait to try it. Looks a bit like a tropical rainforest without the foliage. A lovely flat screen TV and a DVD player. ‘Tis luxury!

I think we’re going to enjoy our two weeks here.