On Thursday the 2nd August 2018 I drove down to Middle Beach Studland Bay and parked up in the NT car park (BH19 3AX). £6 for 4 hours unless you're a member.
GPX File here
Viewranger file here
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| View from the car park |
I set off heading towards Old Harrys Rocks.
Studland was the inspiration for Toytown in Enid Blyton's Noddy and has vast areas of sandy beaches and heathland.
The path heads inland a bit and passes by Manor House Hotel otherwise known as The Pig on The Beach.
A 23 bedroom mellow country house perfectly situated along Studland Bay. This is a real get-away location, truly rural, with uninterrupted views of the long stretches of sandy coastline
Designed in the same style that has become THE PIG’s signature, it features a greenhouse restaurant, a private room for dinner parties, 23 bedrooms and two treatment rooms.
I follow the path along and pass the Bankes Arms pub, Manor Road, STUDLAND, Dorset, BH19 3AU.
The Bankes Arms at Studland is an old smuggler’s haunt nestled in the Purbeck Hills, with fine views of the sea. The pub is minutes from the beach and nearby cliff top walks to the famous Old Harry Rocks.
I turn left just after the pub and follow the South West Coastal path through the sweltering heat to towards the Old Harrys Rocks.
I finally reach Old Harrys Rocks, a fine sight too!.
Old Harry Rocks are three chalk formations, including a stack and a stump, located at Handfast Point, on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. They mark the most easterly point of the Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The chalk of Old Harry Rocks used to be part of a long stretch of chalk between Purbeck and the Isle of Wight, but remained as a headland after large parts of this seam were eroded away. As the headland suffered hydraulic action (a process in which air and water are forced into small cracks by the force of the sea, resulting in enlarging cracks), first caves, then arches formed. The tops of the arches collapsed after being weakened by rainfall and wind, leaving disconnected stacks. One of these stacks is known as Old Harry. Old Harry's Wife was another stack which was eroded through corrosion and abrasion, until the bottom was so weak the top fell away, leaving a stump. Hydraulic action is the main cause of erosion (sheer force of the wave) that damaged the rock and caused it to fall away.
The downlands of Ballard Down are formed of chalk with some bands of flint, and were formed approximately 66 million years ago. The bands of stone have been gradually eroded over the centuries, some of the earlier stacks having fallen (Old Harry's original wife fell in 1509), while new ones have been formed by the breaching of narrow isthmuses. Across the water to the east The Needles on the Isle of Wight are usually visible. These are also part of the same chalk band and only a few thousand years ago were connected to Ballard Down.
To form the stacks, the sea gradually eroded along the joints and bedding planes where the softer chalk meets harder bedrock of the rock formations to create a cave. This eventually eroded right through to create an arch. The arch subsequently collapsed to leave the stacks of Old Harry and his wife, No Man's Land and the gap of St Lucas' Leap. The large outcrop of rock at the end of the cliffs is often referred to as "No Man's Land".
Old Harry is formed by erosion processes, which will eventually remove the stack, whilst new stacks develop. Some people desire to preserve the rocks and protect them from the erosive processes that formed Old Harry. The National Trust, who own the stacks in perpetuity, have experience in looking after the coast, and have found that "working with natural processes is the most sustainable approach".
There are various stories about the naming of the rocks. One legend says that the Devil (traditionally known euphemistically as "Old Harry") slept on the rocks. Another local legend says that the rocks were named after Harry Paye, the infamous Poole pirate, whose ship hid behind the rocks awaiting passing merchantmen. Yet another tale has it that a ninth-century Viking raid was thwarted by a storm and that one of the drowned, Earl Harold, was turned into a pillar of chalk.
I walk on a bit, I don't have a set route to follow so I adhoc a bit and walk inland and through a wooded area.
The path I take throws me out walking through tall bracken and to a barbed wire fence, well I'm not going back so I hop over the fence and walk through a farm field.
I pass some cows and back to a farm gate that I manage to open and back out onto the Coastal Path.
I follow the path back the way I came and come across another path that leads through a wooded area, being hot I taek this shaded path that is going in the same direction, only it changes direction and I end up doing a 360 full loop of the wood and end up back where I started!!
I walk along back to the road an take a path that leads down to South Beach.
The beach scene set in Spain in the Only Fools and Horses episode "It Never Rains..." was filmed on Studland beach.
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| A Pill box on the edge of South Beach |
In 1940, the coastline at Studland Bay was one of the two stretches of Dorset coast where a German invasion was considered most likely and it was fortified as a part of British anti-invasion preparations of World War II.
The village and beach were used as a training area before the D-Day landing in the Second World War. On top of Redend Point, a small sandstone cliff which splits the beach in two at high tide, is Fort Henry. Built in 1943 by Canadian engineers, it is 90 feet (27 m) long, with 3-foot-thick (0.9 m) walls and an 80-foot-wide (24 m) recessed observation slit. Seven Valentine tanks fitted with duplex drive equipment sank in the bay during Exercise Smash in April 1944, resulting in the death of six soldiers.
On 18 April 1944, King George VI, General Sir Bernard Montgomery and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, met here to observe the training troops and discuss the plans for the coming battle.
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| Curious Stone formation |
Rather than take a path that leads back uphill, I decide to take my shoes off and paddle around the rocks and onto Middle Beach.
I stop and have a chat with a elderly gentleman that used to work in Chadwell Heath but has since moved to the Isle of Wight 10 years ago and hasn't regretted it ever since! You can see the Isle of Wight from here!
I walk on, onto Knoll Beach and eventually onto Studland Beach.
Before I knew it I had walked unknowing onto it seems the UK best and famous Studland Bay nudist beach! There were bits hanging everywhere!
With a history going back as far as the 1920s, naturism has become a distinctive part of the landscape on the Studland peninsular. Today, Studland has probably the best known official naturist beach in Britain.
The naturist area is located on Knoll Beach and comprises a 900m stretch of coastline.
The area is clearly marked with green-topped posts and blue signs. We ask naturists to be clothed if they're outside the designated area.
Not one to waste a new experience, I stripped of and had a swim!
The water was so warm , probably down to it being shallow and it was so hot!
After my swim I walked on off the nudist beach and the famous Sandbanks come into view.
Sandbanks is a small peninsula (1 km2 or 0.39 sq mi) crossing the mouth of Poole Harbour. It is well known for the highly regarded Sandbanks Beach and property value; Sandbanks has, by area, the fourth highest land value in the world. The Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs Coastline area has been dubbed as "Britain's Palm Beach" by the national media.
The adjacent areas of Lilliput, Branksome Park and Canford Cliffs, also have the largest concentration of expensive properties outside London. In 2005 a modest bungalow on the peninsula sold for £3m, despite its state of disrepair. The same bungalow, in the same condition, went on sale in 2007 for £4m, attracting further attention.
Sandbanks' properties have been adversely affected by the Financial crisis of 2007–2010, with a significant fall in house prices across the area. However, in July 2009 a 1,393-square-metre (14,990 sq ft) empty plot of land on the peninsula was put up for sale for £13.5m – the equivalent of nearly £10,000 per square metre.
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| Sandbanks Ferry |
Sandbanks is connected to Studland by a chain ferry, the Sandbanks Ferry, which runs across the mouth of the harbour.
I walk back the way I came back along the nudist beach and another swim.
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| Looking across to Old Harrys Rocks |
I reach the car after 8 and a half miles in glorious weather.
I drive back home and stop in a lay-by to take the pictures below looking over Studland Bay.
One final stop to take picture of Corfe Castle, shame I didn't have time to visit.
Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and commands a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. The first phase was one of the earliest castles in England to be built at least partly using stone when the majority were built with earth and timber. Corfe Castle underwent major structural changes in the 12th and 13th centuries.
