The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-22)

The Sunday Times May 22, 2022 13

chalk hills, epic surf beaches,
fishing harbours and villages
with cafés serving cream teas.
The introduction is terrific.
At Sandbanks — its glass-walled
beach houses more Bondi
than Bournemouth — I board
the five-minute chain ferry to
the Isle of Purbeck. There’s a
rumble, a slight sway across
Poole Harbour, then the ramp
lowers to reveal a white beach
and ripe green hills.
It’s lovely, but hardly
new, so I seek out a fresh
perspective with the activities
operator Fore Adventure.
From Middle Beach my
instructor, Elliot, and I kayak

south, past beach huts on

wooded shores and around

limestone bluffs like ships’

bows. Ahead are Old Harry

Rocks, the chalk headland

where Dorset stutters out

into the sea.

We surge on the swell

through a gully to bob

beneath white cliffs rippling

west. Seaward is a fishing

boat mobbed by gulls, while

on the horizon waves glitter.

It’s quite a sight — far more

exhilarating than you’d

expect from the shore.

A good start, but it’s time

to hit the road. From Swanage

I head into the idyllic England

Celtic Sea Sandbanks

Weymouth

Lyme

Regis

Exeter

Dartmouth

Plymouth

St Austell

Penzance

St Ives

Padstow

Clovelly

Lynton Watchet

English Channel

20 miles

SOUTH WEST 660

where Enid Blyton set her

Famous Five books. There’s

toothy Corfe Castle, Church

Knowle village in Farrow &

Ballesque shades of stone, and

verges of bluebells and cow

parsley swooped on by

swallows. Lanes bend and

drop, while beneath Creech

Barrow Hill a patchwork of

fields, copses and smaller

gorse-shaded hills carries

the soft lilt of timeless

topographies.

Ministry of Defence

manoeuvres put Kimmeridge

Bay out of bounds, and

Lulworth Cove is hardly

undiscovered, but route

notes suggest the Isle of

Portland. Thomas Hardy

called this peninsula “the

Gibraltar of Wessex”, but

more apt is the bumper

sticker ahead of me as I

arrive: “Keep Portland weird”.

Connected to the mainland

by a causeway but with an

island mentality, this is a

magnificently odd place. At

Portland Bill Lighthouse the

tide churns past cliffs with

stone used to build the Tower

of London, St Paul’s Cathedral

and Buckingham Palace; they

have been the doom of ships

since long before the Vikings

made landfall here. It feels

gloriously edge-of-world and

I inhale the briny air as you

might a fine wine.

Afterwards are more quiet

discoveries. There’s a splendid

fish lunch beside Chesil Beach

at the Club House in West

Bexington — sister to the

more famous Hive Beach Café

in Burton Bradstock. There’s

also a short walk above

Abbotsbury, where steel-blue

sea fills gaps in the Dorset hills,

and medieval St Catherine’s

Chapel, marooned on a

lonely summit, radiates

a numinous beauty; an

unseen skylark warbles

above — John Betjeman

would have loved it.

At Lyme Regis I set out

with a fisherman, Harry May,

clad in wellies and a tattered

jacket as we reel green-gold

whiting into his boat a mile

offshore. He tells me how

the first mackerel

of the season is

delivered to the

town mayor,

and of his

house behind

the harbour

that crumbled

after a landslip

in 1962.

“This whole coast

is on the move,” he

says. “Always has been.” That’s

why the surrounding cliffs

are fossil gold — try Monmouth

Beach at Lyme Regis and East

Beach in Charmouth.

Onwards into Devon,

where the landscape broadens,

flexing its muscles. Even in

brilliant sunshine the seaside

village of Beer has the quality

of a faded photo — it’s a swirl

of Union Jacks and glinting

flint façades, a stream gurgling

down its high street towards

fishing boats stacked on a

shingle beach; trousers

rolled up, a bloke in a striped

deckchair eats an ice cream,

eyed by a circling gull.

In Branscombe the

sign of the Masons Arms

reads “Now ye toil not”

— wise advice when you

live in such an improbably

lovely village. Cottages twist

along a bucolic coomb, a

James paddles past

Old Harry. Top left,

at the Sidmouth

donkey sanctuary;

main, Chesil Beach;

below, dessert at the

Salutation, Topsham

blue

t hills,

e’s

May,

shingle

rolled

deckch

eyed

s

r

—

live

lovely

along a

waterwheel clunks and visitors

pay for parking by chucking

coins in a well.

This subtle beauty sums up

east Devon, yet it’s a part of the

world routinely bypassed on

A roads to the English Riviera

or Cornwall — do the same

and you’ll miss d’Artagnan

and Millie leaning into your

hand as they chew daisies in

one of the world’s largest

donkey sanctuaries, near

Sidmouth; zoom past Budleigh

Salterton and you’ll never hear

beavers chewing reeds in the

rewilded River Otter estuary.

I end in Topsham, outside

the Passage House Inn.

Behind me Georgian red-brick

and pastel façades jostle in

a small town still zesty

from its moment as

England’s second-

largest port in

the 17th and

18th centuries.

Ahead,

Devonian hills

swell beyond

the River Exe.

Later I eat like

a king at the

Michelin-endorsed

Salutation Inn. You’d imagine

that Topsham would be prime

holiday territory; instead it

has the good fortune to be

en route to nowhere special.

And that’s the thing about

the South West 660 — if no

single sight warrants hours

of driving, they combine into

a most rewarding whole. It is

about pointers, not

prescription. Slow down, it

suggests, take a look around.

That’s what every good road

trip is about.

It isn’t coincidence that this

is my first time in Topsham

despite decades of passing it

on the M5. I’d return in a

heartbeat, but not for a while —

there are nine other sections of

the new route to explore first.

James Stewart was a guest

of the South West 660

(southwest660.com)

Even in brilliant

sunshine Beer

village has the

quality of a

faded photo

BY FELDMAN1/GETTY IMAGES; LIAM BUNCE, CLARE HARGREAVES/ALAMY; VICTORIA ROSE