Charmouth to Westhay & Stonebarrow Hill

[puddleshark]

A mostly murky day along the coast path from Charmouth. The wind is back in the east, but very light, and, now and then, whenever the sun managed to break through, it was warm enough for the gorse flowers to be giving out their distinctive coconut scent.


An early morning drive into West Dorset. Things seen on the way: a very dirty white Transit van with the words "NO MUSCLE CREW" written in the dirt on the back, an electrical engineering firm's van with a flower carefully drawn in the dirt on the back.

No sheep yet in the fields on the high ground between Dorchester and Bridport.


Charmouth, where the River Char meets the sea.


The beach, early morning, when the dog walkers and the sea anglers have the beach to themselves.


Left the car in the beach front car park at Charmouth (which still takes coins - hurrah for Charmouth council! - albeit rather a lot of them. Luckily I have a coin hoard in my car). Started the long climb up onto the Coast Path.


Steps where the path passes through a clifftop thorn brake.


The coast path, and below, the undercliff. A couple of weeks ago, the clay paths here would have been horribly slippery to walk. But a week of sunshine and north wind has baked them hard.


The whole of this coastline is crumbling, the cliffs an unstable mix of clay and sand. Every few years they have to move the coast path a few metres inland.


Gorse and thorn colonizing the landslips.


More steps. Luckily I was heading downhill at this point.


Golden Cap, the highest sea cliff in Dorset, in the distance.

Walked as far as Westhay Farm, but lacked the ambition to climb Golden Cap, so headed back, taking a small detour up onto Stonebarrow Hill to avoid the nasty steps.




I took the Smuggler's Path, of course. It creeps along the side of Stonebarrow Hill, out of sight of the Excise.

"Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!"

From a document dated 1830, held in the Dorset History Centre archives:

The Rev. Thomas Hodges and wife lived [in Charmouth] in a house opposite the Church - Luttrell House and she got her brandy cheap from the smugglers then infecting the coast. The Excise officers lived at the bottom of the village. Their Chief wrote to the Rev. Hodges saying that he was coming down for a few days as he had work to do down there. Mrs Hodges got very anxious thinking he had heard of the brandy, but she knew well and trusted the excise officer's house keeper, so she consulted her and when suggested the incriminating bottles should be put in a cupboard in the excise officers own house, as the last place he would suspect. This was agreed to. Mrs Hodges brought down the bottles hidden in the vast muff fashionable at the time.

https://www.freshford.com/headlines.htm

"To work out how much smuggling was worth in Dorset is incalculable but by modern standards it was worth millions. In 1784 the government estimated more than two thirds of all spirits and tea consumed were contraband." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-15434134



March violets in flower along the Smuggler's Path.

A little further along, the Smuggler's Path joins a concrete farm track - no sneaking your five-and-twenty ponies along there by night - so I cut onto the path leading up onto Stonebarrow Hill, a pleasant chalk path up through the gorse.




Heading back down towards Charmouth.


The beach huts in Charmouth behind fortifications. The bay at Charmouth is wide, and the beach much more exposed than neighbouring Lyme Regis.


Fossil hunters on West Beach at Charmouth. The local cliffs are famous for their fossils from the Jurassic period.

There are cafés on both the West and the East Beach, but they are both greasy spoons, smelling strongly of stale cooking oil, serving pre-wrapped industrial cakes, and tea in paper cups. I've no objection to greasy spoons, if they serve tea properly, in mugs. But tea in a paper cup is just not right.

Drove home very grumpy, vowing never to return, as I always do when I have to finish a walk without a proper cup of tea. But actually it was a lovely walk, and not as tiring as I expected. I think next time I could plan a longer route.

Comments

[sartorias]

Some really lovely bits there! I can totally see that being a smugglers' coast.

[puddleshark]

Yes, all those hidden coves and valleys, and, inland, stretches of uninhabited heath - perfect for moving your contraband without attracting attention!

[greenwoodside]

I recognise the Kipling, though only from the singing of Peter Bellamy. The former certainly seems to have had a knack for inflecting smuggling with more than a hint of romance and excitement. I'm thinking of Poor Honest Men here too. Wonder if he originated the trope, or got it from somewhere else?

Since RLS was sending Jim Hawkins off looking for pirate gold decades before, I'd guess not... And now I'm thinking about folk songs and broadside ballads, which could go down a deep hole, so time to stop.

Beautiful photos, as always. With all those steep paths, the smugglers totally earned their fee.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Yes. Some of those paths are hard enough to take even when you're not carrying kegs...

I suppose there has always been an element of folk hero about the smugglers. They were bringing wealth to some of the poorest and remotest Dorset villages. And what parson wants to pay massive import duty on his brandy? Behind the romanticizing and the tall tales of smugglers outwitting the authorities, it was probably a brutal business.

[watervole]

Flanders and Swann riffed on it when they wrote 'Bedstead Men'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csYLZlG74cw

[puddleshark]

LOL

Oh, I hadn't come across that before - it's brilliant! Thank you!

[kaishin108]

I was just hearing about the huge smugglers trade yesterday when I watched 'Escape to the Country'. It must have been very prevalent.

Beautiful photos except it's sad to see cliffs near the sea crumbling, sigh.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Coastal erosion is very much part of the local geology, especially along the cliffs near Lyme Bay. But the landslips are fabulous for nature. The cliffside scrub is full of songbirds.

[house_wren]

Thank you for the walk, which reminded me of some places from my childhood and also made me want to read an old fashioned novel set in Dorset.

[puddleshark]

You're welcome!

I think Moonfleet by J. Meade Faulkner is the classic Dorset smuggling novel, but I have to admit, I've not actually read it.

[heleninwales]

I read Moonfleet in my early teens but can't remember anything about it now.

That looks like a great walk with some interesting history to go with it.

[puddleshark]

It is a lovely stretch of coast to walk in fine weather. I don't think I'd want to be walking on those clay paths after rain, though...

[nikonf3]

" the gorse flowers to be giving out their distinctive coconut scent. " I wonder what year the first English person realized this? Maybe someone who sailed with Captain Cook?

[puddleshark]

I remember reading that there was a coconut listed among the treasures of Wardour Castle in an inventory dating from 1605, so there must have been coconuts here in England long before Captain Cook, though they were obviously a great rarity!