I’ve just completed the first draught of the chapter describing my most local coast and my favourite paddle, the Swanage to Kimmeridge trip. You might think that writing about coast that I already know well would be a doddle, but it somehow took me all of yesterday to jumble 1500 words together. The problem is not so much what to put in, but what to leave out. I could bore for England on the pleasures of the Purbeck stone cliffs.
Halfway between Seacombe and Winspit, a distinctive slab of rock angles up from the water against the cliffs. This is Halsewell Rock. Close to this spot in January 1786, the sinking East Indiaman Halsewell was driven whole into a huge cave during a snowstorm. Of the 240 souls on board, only 82 survived until dawn, when crew members scrambled up the rock to seek help. The dead included seven young women en route to Bombay to marry staff of the East India Company.
Further details can be found here.
