Adventures in Wonderland!

Friday October 8
Today we were exploring the Chesil Beach area, starting at the Abbotsbury end, with Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens. Originally established in 1765 by the first Countess of Ilchester, it has since been developed into a 30-acre grade 1 listed magnificent woodland valley garden. Whilst they are particularly known for their camellias, rhododendrons and hydrangeas, there is something to be seen throughout the seasons, now enhanced by the Wonderland Sculpture Trail created by Robert James Workshop - beautiful whimsical sculptures of celebrated characters from classic literature, notably Alice in Wonderland, faithfully modelled from the original illustrations and cast in bronze.
From the gardens, there is a great view over Chesil Beach (top right in my extra collage. After the gardens we went down to the beach and walked along it for a while.
Chesil Beach is an 18-mile long shingle barrier beach stretching from West Bay to Portland and is one of Dorset’s most iconic landmarks. When I was in Grammar School in England, studying Geography for A level, we had gone to Chesil Beach for a week’s fieldtrip. Unfortunately, my memories of this are somewhat vague, and I was keen to refresh my memory. This is no long sandy beach, but wild, rugged and at the mercy of Mother Nature. Author, John Fowles, captured the landscape of Chesil in his famous quote:
“It is above all an elemental place, made of sea, shingle and sky, its dominant sound always that of waves on moving stone: from the great surf and pounding … of sou’westers, to the delicate laps and back-gurgling of the rare dead calm….”
One thing I do remember from my field trip all those years ago is that the pebbles on Chesil Beach are graded in size from pea-sized near the Abbotsbury end to potato-sized at the Portland end, and are made up of mainly flint and chert from the Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks, along with Bunter pebbles from Budleigh Salterton. It is believed that smugglers landing on the beach at night could judge their position along the coast simply by picking up a handful of shingle! Behind Chesil Beach lies a large saline lake known as the Fleet Lagoon, one of the few remaining undisturbed brackish lagoons left in the world. As well as being a wildlife haven, the Fleet Lagoon is also famous for being one of the locations where the Bouncing Bomb (immortalised in the film The Dam Busters) was tested during World War II.
We then continued on by car to Portland island, to admire the view from the other end, (left hand picture of collage), and see the lighthouse. The island is known for its stone which has been featured on many buildings around the world, including St.Paul’s and the eastern face of Buckingham Palace. On our way back in the late afternoon, we visited Tout Quarry, one of the disused quarries, which has been developed somewhat into a sculpture park and nature preserve, whilst there is one main path which goes round part of it, there were various other smaller paths, some quite steep, cross-crossing the place, and we felt more signage would have been useful!