Corfe Castle and Chapman's Pool to Swanage
Walked by Sally and Richard, Bank Holiday Monday, 27th May 2013.
About 12 miles, with just over 8 miles progress on South West Coast Path. About 7 hours, including stops.
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
Breakfast at Alford House was a repeat of yesterday's scrambled egg and bacon and, as yesterday, we left soon after 9am. We walked across the common into the centre of the village where we bought sandwiches for lunch, then we headed back to Corfe Common by way of West Street. We turned left onto the common from the end of the road, then we turned right onto the Purbeck Way. In this direction, the route across the common was very obvious. Indeed I enjoyed our walk along the Purbeck Way back to Hill Bottom more than I had enjoyed the walk in the opposite direction yesterday - I'm not sure why. The weather was lovely both days.
We reached the junction with the South West Coast Path (SY963777) just before 11am, and turned left. We almost immediately started to climb and soon reached the summit of West Hill (which is on the same plateau as St Aldhelm's Head). The views back to Chapman's Pool and Houns-tout Cliff (shown to the left) were lovely and the further along we walked, the further back along our route from Lulworth and beyond that we were able to see. We crossed Emmetts Hill and reached the hanging valley at Pier Bottom - inevitably this meant a descent and a matching ascent!
There were quite a lot of other people about and the open day at the Coastwatch Lookout Station on St Aldhelm's Head was doing a roaring trade. St Aldhelm's Head is also known as St Alban's Head (reputedly because of a difficulty in pronouncing 'Aldhelm') and the Coastwatch station uses the St Alban's Head form of the name. Also here are the Norman St Aldhelm's Chapel (whose square shape indicates that it may originally have been built as a look out for Corfe Castle rather than as a chapel) and a memorial to the work on radar research done in the area between 1940 and 1942.
As you turn the corner at St Aldhelm's Head you lose the views back towards Lulworth and Portland, and you are looking along lower cliffs of Portland Stone towards Anvil Point. The walking was generally straightforward, though there were some ups and downs, in particular around disused quarries at Winspit and Seacombe. We stopped for lunch somewhere beneath West Man, before descending to Winspit. Many of the disused quarries are now used by climbers, and after we'd passed Dancing Ledge, we saw a climber apparently disappearing over a sea cliff.
Apparently the cliffs in this area support many seabirds, including puffins, and dolphins - we saw seabirds but no puffins or dolphins. However, there were frequent patches of low-growing wildflowers in addition to the yellow gorse that we'd had on previous days. It was a gentler landscape than previously, and pretty.
We reached the first of two sets of modern 'mile indicator posts' and sat on the base of it for a rest. Then we continued to the lighthouse at Anvil Point. You're in Durlston Country Park and there were too many other people about for our liking. That's the downside of walking on a sunny bank holiday! We passed Tilly Whim Caves, actually three 18th Century Portland Stone quarries, and followed a level path around Durlston Head.
We reached steps leading up to the well-known Portland Stone globe. This, and Durlston 'Castle' itself were built by George Burt, a stone mason and landowner, and nephew of John Mowlem. We walked up to the castle, now a recently restored visitor centre, with a geological time line embedded in a wall of Purbeck Stone. We found the cafe, but opted instead for a Purbeck ice cream from the shop. Then we walked back to the Globe and down the steps to rejoin the South West Coast Path - which promptly climbed steeply back to just where we had been sitting to eat our ice creams! Ah well the views were good, now ahead to Old Harry Rocks and offshore to the Isle of Wight.
The route of the South West Coast Path from Durlston Castle was not absolutely clear, but we took a pretty grassy track through woodland and this was indeed the correct path. This brought us onto the road down towards Swanage and we then meandered our way around side streets and onto Peveril Point. We said hello to another serious-looking walker and followed him right to the tip of Peveril Point, although the route of the South West Coast Path cuts across just beforehand. There were good views across Swanage Bay, and the beach in Swanage looked very busy - not surprising really for a fine bank holiday Monday. We could hear a loudhailer, but we’re not sure whether this was related to the Punch and Judy show, preparations for the Rotary Club's duck race, or something else.
We walked down past the pier and into Swanage. It was high tide, so there wasn't much space left on the beach, but the promenade was buzzing. We turned away from the seafront and walked up through shops (with large numbers of potential sources of sandwiches for tomorrow) to the Swanage Railway. We had become quite used to the sound and sight of the steam train between here and Corfe Castle, so couldn't resist the temptation to take a closer look.
Rivendell Guest House was easy to find, on a residential street near the Swanage Railway. We had a lovely welcome from Kevin and his son Findlay, who showed us to Room 5, a very comfortable room on the front of the house. In the evening we decided to have fish and chips, which felt appropriate both for Swanage and for our final evening meal on the South West Coast Path. However when we went down to the two main fish and chip shops, there were long queues out the door of both, so we went for a walk around Swanage first, admiring the facade of the Town Hall which was originally built for the Mercers' Hall in London. Apparently John Mowlem and George Burt did a good line in bringing weird and wonderful things like this back to Swanage as ballast, after sending Portland Stone in the opposite direction. The fish and chips when we got them were lovely.
