West Bay to Abbotsbury

Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 28th April 2013.

About 11 miles, 10 miles progress on South West Coast Path (inland route from West Bexington to Abbotsbury). 6 hours, including stops and potter around Abbotsbury.

Click here for all our photos from this walk.

It was cloudy today (which stymied the photography a bit) but dry all day and we had another varied walk. Linda cooked us a nice breakfast, which was served by her husband John. We met the other young couple staying at Seadale B&B before leaving around 9.30am. We stopped at the Spar Shop on the way down to West Bay, for provisions for lunch, then pottered around for a bit - watching rowing boats coming into the harbour and working out the geology of East Cliff - and we got it right! The cliff comprises rocks of hard and softer Bridport Sand Formation - the oolitic limestone indicated by my amazing BGS iPad app is, at this stage, just right on the top - you can see it more clearly on the top of Burton Cliff, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was after 10am when we left West Bay, climbing up steeply to the top of East Cliff. There was a golf course to our left and the walking was then on the level for a while, though not for as far as we'd expected - there is quite a significant dip about half a mile in. Shortly afterwards we descended again to Burton Freshwater, past a caravan site. The River Bride meanders to the sea here, and you have to follow it inland for a while, to a foot bridge, before returning to the coast. There were good views to Burton Bradstock and lots of people out walking - possibly because it was Sunday, possible because there is a circular walk from Burton Bradstock and possibly because of the Hive Beach HQ - see below!

The Beach below Burton Cliff was closed because of the danger of rock falls, but the path on top of the cliff was still open. However, on the approach to Hive Beach the original cliff path had been closed, with a new route provided slightly inland. It was well signposted and was no problem. We walked down to Hive Beach, wondering if what we believed to be a seasonal cafe would be open - what a surprise we had. This is Hive Beach HQ which appears to be imitating River Cottage HQ and was packed with people having their Sunday brunch. We restricted ourselves to tea/coffee.

As we walked on to Cogden, the cliffs petered out and Chesil Beach extended as far as we could see. Or is it Chesil Bank? Whatever, this 18 mile shingle bank links the mainland to the Isle of Portland and so it is technically a tombolo. The size of the pebbles gets bigger the further east you go (the logic of that defeats me, I feel it should be the other way round – but it definitely isn’t) to the extent that local legend claims that fishermen beaching on the shingle in the dark would know where they are simply from the size of the pebbles.

We went to the seaward side of the caravans at The Old Coastguard House, then took a path at the back of the shingle bank. There were lots of other people about, mostly dog walkers, so it was something of a relief when the coast path forked to the left behind what is shown on the map as 'Burton Mere'. This was actually an attractive and peaceful reed bed.

The reed bed ended and we continued to walk on a path behind the shingle bank. As we approached West Bexington, there were paragliders practising on the ridge to our left, and quite a significant expanse of water, again to our left (inland), but closer to us. This is 'West Bexington Nature Reserve', with rather more water than appears on the map, and it you were to try to follow some of the paths towards Swyre, you'd get rather wet. We continued straight ahead - easy walking most of the time but more difficult when we were on shingle.

We stopped for lunch at West Bexington, sitting on a lump of rock and watching a passing cycle race. The South West Coast Path has two alternative routes from this point. The inland route, which looked more interesting than the coastal route at this point (walking alongside shingle banks doesn't really appeal, whether that be on the North Norfolk coast or here) rejoins the coastal route way to the east, past the Isle of Portland and Weymouth, but we'd realised last night that we could take the inland route from West Bexington then cut down to Abbotsbury on the Macmillan Way, so that's what we did!

We climbed up through West Bexington on the road then, where the road curved round to the left, we took a stony track and continued to climb. Close to the top of the ridge, we forked right and took a clear path (signed as the South West Coast Path, the South Dorset Ridgeway and sometimes as the Hardy Way, running approximately parallel to the B3157. We were following signs for the Hardy Monument (though we didn't get that far).

As we walked along the high level path, we passed first Limekiln Hill (complete with the remains of a lime kiln), then Turk's Hill, then (after crossing the road) Abbotsbury Castle (an Iron Age Hill Fort with a 21st Century Beacon). The views to Chesil Bank, The Fleet, the Isle of Portland, and down to Abbotsbury were superb – our photographs have come out surprisingly well, but they don’t really do justice to the magnificent views.

We reached the Macmillan Way and turned right, descending steeply to Abbotsbury, through fields of sheep and lambs. We reached Abbotsbury around 3pm, but then explored for an hour or so. It's a very attractive village, site of a Benedictine monastery, complete with swannery, huge tithe barn (bizarrely now a children's animal centre) and St Catherine's Chapel, on its own hill. We climbed up to the Chapel, and on the way down I made friends with a small girl named Sita.

Abbotsbury has any number of craft shops, antique shops and tea rooms, but we restricted ourselves to the Abbotsbury Tea Rooms, where we were staying. In fact we met Roger while we were taking our muddy boots off outside the shop. He showed us to our delightful room, with a curved wall at the point where the outside of the building curves around between Rodden Row and Market Street - an awkward corner that causes some traffic problems. Lyn then made us a cup of tea whilst Roger sorted out the television in the room. This is just their third season as proprietors of the tea room. Lyn used to run a catering company in Poole and Roger still has a business in Bournemouth.

In the evening we had a pleasant meal (Dublin Pie - chicken and leek with a puff pastry top - and Thatcher's Gold cider) at the Ilchester Arms, then we pottered around Abbotsbury a little more, until the coolness of the evening drove us back to the comfort of our room at the Abbotsbury Tea Rooms.