Walk 15 South Coast Path Brighstone to Freshwater Bay - 6.5 miles

The next stage of my coastal path walk began in sunshine at the Isle of Wight Pearl, but after about 50 minutes, black clouds were looming so we retraced our steps to the car park, arriving just as drizzle started, leaving us no option but to repair to the Wight Mouse Inn for a spot of lunch and complete the walk another day.
I was trying out my new camera for the first part of the walk and apologise for the blurry images...more practice required!

Chilton Chine

Some very decorative Jersey cows came up to meet us.

On the hill across the road can be seen Brook Hill House, where JB Priestley lived from 1953 to 1959.

 Brook Chine

 Two days later I picked up the route again at the car park by Brook Chine.

The Brook Bay rocks are the oldest on this coastline, part of the Wealden Group, composed of red mudstone and sandstone. Here can be found fossils and dinosaur footprints from the Cretaceous period, when Iguanodon and the armoured Polacanthis walked the slopes. This one can be seen on the beach near Hanover Point.

This is a very soft rock and these shots show the erosion process in action.

 

By contrast, Compton and Freshwater Bays are backed by the relatively more stable chalk cliffs.

The fields just below the road at Compton Bay were covered in an amazing display of Pyramidal Orchids, or Anacamptis pyramidalis. Though fairly rare it flourishes on the chalky soil here and has been named the County Flower of the Island.

If anyone knows what kind of moth/butterfly this is, please leave a comment!

Nearing Freshwater Bay, the white cliffs of Tennyson Down stretch away. The white building is the Freshwater Bay House Hotel, which currently hosts a Dandelion cafe.

A sad reminder of Edward Lewis Miller, a boy of "great mental endowment" according to his tombstone in Goudhurst. Aged just 15, the lad was killed in a cliff fall from this place on 28 August 1846.

On top of the cliff is Fort Redoubt, a Palmerston fort, built in 1855 but now containing a modern private residence. A tunnel links the fort with the smugglers caves below.

This great slab fell off the main cliff in 1968 and is known as Mermaid Rock.

The gull is perched on Stag Rock, so called because of the story that a stag jumped from the cliff to this rock to escape the hunt.

No longer visible, this was the site of the local landmark Arch Rock until it collapsed in 1992.

Kayaking is a popular way of exploring the Freshwater smugglers' caves exposed at low tide; walkers do it too, but it is easy to get cut off.

This is one of the island's most picturesque beaches, with its crescent of grey flint and pebble beach.

Just up the lane from the bay is Dimbola Lodge, the home of the Victorian pioneer photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. Inside is a café and museum with visiting exhibitions and a permanent display of Cameron's photos of eminent local residents, including Tennyson, Darwin and Ellen Terry, as well as a charming portrait of Lewis Carroll's Alice Liddell.

Julia Margaret Cameron [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

East Afton Farm on the other side of the bay was the site of the iconic 1970 Isle of Wight Pop festival, when around 100,000 music lovers descended on this remote corner of the island. A permanent exhibition on the festival is housed in Dimbola Lodge and the legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix is commemorated in the grounds.

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