February 4th 2024 - Seaton to Charmouth (9 miles approx.)

A large part of this section of path goes against the title of my blog in that the sea can hardly be seen.  The reason for this is that this particular route travels through a huge landslip that occurred on Christmas Eve 1839.  

I parked my car at the end of the Axe estuary again for this walk as it is free parking and right next to the entrance to the golf course where the route to Lyme begins.

The start of the walk is a real killer, a climb of what seems like a 1 in 4 gradient up the lane to the Axe Cliff golf course.  Apparently, the café and bar in the Clubhouse are walker friendly. I was to out of breath by the time I got to the top of the hill and wouldn’t have been able to sip a drink in between my gasps for air.  As it turned out, that climb was the hardest bit of the whole walk.

Once across the golf course there is a track of a about 200yds to follow before turning off to the right on to a signposted footpath. Another sign at this point warns about the path being a three and a half to 4 hour walk to Lyme with no exits off the path as it passes through the landslip, basically saying that you have to finish the walk or come back on yourself.

There are a couple of fields to cross which afford lovely sea and coastal views across to Beer head before one starts the descent into the landslip.

The first part of the landslip is known as Goat Island and when the landslip occurred in 1839 the fields in this area remained mostly intact, albeit at a lower level than before. Even the crops remained and were later harvested. This area continued to be farmed for many years afterwards until eventually in more modern times the whole area became a nature reserve.

There are quite a few steps to descend into the landslip, but these are quite manageable, even for me with my track record.

Many people say how dark and shady it is through the landslip but my experience was not the same. Doing the walk in winter obviously meant there was no leaves on the trees but even more noticeable was the amount of Ash dieback that was around. Ash trees were the predominant species on the chalky soil and so many were having to be cut down that open areas were being left with far more light being able to enter.  It sounds bad but I imagine that this will enable a greater range of biodiversity within the landslip in the future.

The micro climate  within the landslip was certainly different from being in the fields above, there was no wind and it felt a few degrees warmer, though this could’ve been my body heat due to my lack of fitness, lol.  What was strange was the lack of any sound of the sea even though it was only a matter of yards away at some points.

The path was in very good condition and well maintained making walking easy and progress good. There were a few features to see and the very occasional view of the sea. I have never seen so many Harts tongue ferns (Asplenium Scolopendrium), they were en mass in some areas as far as the eye could see and made quite a spectacle.  All in all this part of the path was very enjoyable, though I imagine it would be even more so in the Spring when all the wild flowers would be in bloom.

About half way to Lyme there are the remains of an old pump house with a stream passing through heading to the sea. A track heads inland from here but with no public right of way to exit the coast path. The coast path itself goes off to the right about 50 yds along the track up many steps and with a very welcome bench at the top.

Further along towards Lyme Regis there is a fork in the path with a permissive footpath to the right signposted Pinhay Warren.  I would certainly recommend this route as it goes along the coast with lovely sea views. It’s a very well maintained path which eventually links back up with the main coast path further along. In my opinion this should be the actual coast path as it follows the coast and is very interesting. One striking feature along here is the number of standing dead tree trunks. It looks like a scene from a war film but is actually caused by the land slipping and tearing the roots off the trees and killing them.  The land all around here is very unstable and I would not recommend straying from the path.

Once the permissive path joins back up with the main coast path the walking is easy and soon Ware Cliffs appear. This area is owned by the National Trust with many different paths leading off the main coast path. This area tends to get busier than the undercliff part as there are circular routes that can be taken for short walks, ideal for families and dog walkers. The large Holmbush car park is very close by and the coast path drops down through the chalets and into Monmouth beach car park.

Being a Sunday, Lyme was quite busy along the seafront so I didn’t hang about and headed straight for the Cornish Bakery pasty shop on the main street where I had a lovely coffee and a spiced cauliflower and onion bhaji pasty (spelt that wrong initially, thank god for spell check and it tastes bloody lovely compared to how it sounds, lol).

I realised by this time that I wouldn’t have enough daylight to walk back through the landslip to Seaton (another downside to winter walking) so arranged for my better half to pick me up from Charmouth and give me a lift back to my car. Carrying along to Charmouth would be fine for me today as the tide was outgoing and I would be able to walk the beach route. The inland route would have taken a lot longer as it now has to go quite a way inland to avoid all the land slippages on Black Ven. 

Feeling fully refreshed I headed back down to the seafront and headed east towards Charmouth along the promenade.  At the end of the promenade I went down a slope and on to Church Beach. The first thing that attracts your attention here is the amount of metal and pottery items that are scattered between the rocks. All these items come from a long since disused rubbish tip at the top of the landslips. This tip used to be some ways inland before the coastal erosion reached it and started slipping all the remains down on to the beach below.

This part of the beach can be quite busy at low tide, usually with two types of people, Fossil hunters and Mud larkers rummaging between the rocks for any interesting finds from years gone by. I was just intent on getting on my way to reach Charmouth. Many of the rocks on this beach are very, very slippery and great care is needed when traversing them as I found out for myself a couple of times with my feet slipping and my arms flailing everywhere doing a kind of drunken dad dance trying to stay upright. It seems that the lower the tide the better for walking as more sandy areas are exposed.

The middle section of the beach is very quiet, in fact I only met one other person here, a young woman carrying a dog across the slippery rocks and doing a much better job of it than me. She smirked at me as we passed each other and I thought, yup, you’ve seen my drunken dad dance episodes further back.

One other point of note is the amount of sea glass there is all along this beach, though I must add that further back towards Lyme some of this glass is still rather sharp, probably due to it being from more recent slips from the rubbish tip above. The further you get along to Charmouth though, the glass is very well worn and rounded and comes in many colours.

As I approached Charmouth the beach was getting busier again with more fossil hunters and the sound of lots of hammers bashing away at the soft rocks in expectation of finding the perfect fossil.  I’m very lucky where I live in South Somerset as the local area around me is made up of golden Ham stone which is full of fossils and the stone cottage I live in has Ammonites and Belemnites showing in all the exterior walls. In fact many of the fossils on sale in the fossil shops in Lyme are from the Ilminster area.

My lift was waiting for me in Charmouth to take me back to my car at Seaton which was much appreciated, more so for the fact that I could sit and rest my weary legs in the car whilst being driven back.

In order to achieve my ambition of doing the coast path both ways I shall walk back from Charmouth to Seaton in the spring when the wild flowers will be in bloom through the Landslip.

This certainly has been an interesting walk with varied landscapes and terrain including a lovely beach walk.