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Article (of sorts) about the Fleet/Chesil, Dorset

Baggy BooksBaggy Books
edited December 2013 in - Resources
This is primarily for Carol, but anyone else is welcome to have a look...

http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2013/11/the-dorset-walk-1-langton-herring-and-moonfleet/

Comments

  • LizLiz
    Eee, by gum. From my house you were supposed to be able to hear the chesil at Fleet. On stormy nights i was sure I could.
  • JanJan
    From the link:-
    [quote= Dorset Life]Walk extremely cautiously on the right-hand side of the road down the hill[/quote] Were the authors en-route on an occasion when my car happened to be piloted along this rat-run commuter road?

    Carol, and others, might prefer traversing these, slightly safer, expeditions.

    http://www.dorsetcamper.com/guided_walks.html

    http://www.southwestcoastpath.com/walksdb/322/

    Enjoy.
  • CarolCarol
    A few years ago, when I was last in Weymouth, my OH took the boys on the glass-bottomed boat in the Fleet. I was in the library doing research. If I'd known, I'd have gone too. :)
  • Mrs BearMrs Bear
    Mr Bear used to fish off Chesil - never caught anything, though. (He's a Weymouth/Portland man). Chesil roars: we took our dog there when she was young, and she bolted for the car, absolutely terrified.Thanks for the memories, BB.
    I see there's an article on Tyneham in this issue, one of my favourite places. Completely unreal and totally lost in time now, and if it hadn't been left so precipitately it could have become just another village that the locals couldn't afford. In a way, it's still theirs because it can't be anyone else's. Fascinating. I'm going to write a novel based there one of these days.
  • CarolCarol
    You can lie on Chesil Beach and hear and feel nature all around you.
  • Island GirlIsland Girl
    I think Chesil Beach might be the one I visited!! If it is that stony stretch of seafront land between Weymouth and Portland, then yes. Woohoo!
    It's memorable to me for the incredibly loud noise of the waves rolling and pushing and sucking at the stones and rocks on the beach so much so that, if you closed your eyes, it sounded like an enormous sporting arena full of people applauding. I've never heard anything quite like it.
  • CarolCarol
    That's it IG. Though that bit is not as good as the bit between Weymouth and Abbotsbury.

    You can close your eyes and you could be on that beach in any time period in history.

    It goes for miles.
  • LizLiz
    IG, read 'Moonfleet' - a book about smuggling by the English novelist J. Meade Falkner. It was written in 1898. We read it at school. It's about that area, and the beach figures strongly. As a child living down there i could hear the beach from my bed, and imagined it later when I lived in Dorchester, a bit inland, on stormy nights. Maybe I did hear it.
  • JanJan
    [quote=Island Girl]that stony stretch of seafront land between Weymouth and Portland[/quote]
    [quote=Carol]that bit is not as good as the bit between Weymouth and Abbotsbury[/quote]
    The Chesil Bank is much longer than folk may realise.
    It is possible {although very strenuous} to walk its eighteen miles between Portland and West Bay, Bridport; has been scientifically measured to move and is claimed to be a wonder of the world.
    http://www.chesilbeach.org/
  • CarolCarol
    It is very long, Jan. And I would not want to be the person to walk the length of it...:)
  • LizLiz
    Half my family come from West Bay... some still live there.
  • JanJan
    [quote=Carol]It is very long[/quote]
    Include adjoining villages, scenery and attractions, a summer camping holiday could be filled by tour of its length.
    A further week might continue west through fossil 'fields' and rocky escarpments to Lyme Regis.
    Family entertainment, Carol, whilst you soak more inspiration for that historical romance you are scribing.
    {Maybe Baggy Books was endeavouring to supply the ambience without need for the physical trek.}
  • CarolCarol
    I did five summer holidays down in Weymouth- well a little outside of Weymouth. And visits to Chesil Beach and Lyme Regis were standard. :)
  • Island GirlIsland Girl
    Ooh, ooh, ooh!!! *frantically waves hand in air* I went to Lyme Regis too! Woohoo. I walked out onto the jetty and imagined myself in a hooded cape a-la The French Lieutenant's Woman. Unfortunately it wasn't as atmospheric as I'd imagined. No stormy seas or wild wind whipping up waves. In fact, it was quite sunny and lovely, as were most days I spent in England.
  • CarolCarol
    You're fortunate it was sunny. You would not want to do that if it was stormy seas or wild whipping waves...
  • Island GirlIsland Girl
    No, it'd be pretty darn scary out on that walkway thingamajig in woolly weather, Carol.
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