Paddlers who have launched or landed at Kimmeridge Bay in Dorset will know the Clavell Tower, a nineteenth century folly which overlooks the reef break below the cliffs. If you paddle inshore towards the tower, then you are too early and will find yourself getting surfed onto bedrock! The Bay entrance is a bit further on, through deeper water.
The tower has been in a sorry state since the 1930s when it was gutted by fire and left to rot. In recent years it was fenced off and graffiti-ed, teetering on the brink of collapsing into the sea through cliff erosion. A campaign was launched to save the tower, fronted by the novelist PD James whose novel ‘The Black Tower’ was centred on Kimmeridge. £900 000 was eventually conjured up from sources such as the National Lottery and work is underway to move the tower 25 metres backwards. This staggering sum will apparently be recouped (at least in part) by renting the finished building out.
All good.
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