Kilve Beach to Watchet -11th March 2023

The walk from Kilve to Watchet is a mere 7.2 miles according to Mr Google.  This presents no problem, but rural public transport always seems to have a way of making walking twice as difficult.  There is no rail service between Watchet and Kilve.  In fact no service has ever existed between Watchet and Bridgwater – two medium sized ports on the Somerset coast.  Instead, all rail links between the two ports were via Taunton – a significant detour.  The rail line to Taunton closed in the 1960s and now runs as a heritage railway.

The bus service has the same limitations – no service along the coastal plain between Watchet and Bridgwater.  Currently there is an infrequent service between Watchet and Hinckley Point provided by the good people at EDF who are building the new nuclear plant.  They need thousands of employees to build this £32 billion facility.  I suspect this service will cease once the power station is finished.  Anyway, it doesn’t run at weekends, so we will have to walk all the way back.  It now becomes a 14.4 mile walk – quite significant.  Taxi is an option I suppose, but a last resort at probably £30?

So, resigned to having to retrace our steps back from Watchet, we park at Kilve Beach.  As soon as we emerge from the trees surrounding the car park the wind bites deep inside our waterproofs and we are glad of the thermal layer beneath our cags.  Even seasoned hikers like us can be caught out by the weather.  Betty’s gloves are no match for the wind chill experienced on the cliff top.  She does not have the best of circulation to her fingers either.

“It feels like someone is pulling my fingernails off” She complains.

Not cursed with the same physiological challenges, I perhaps don’t share her distress, so when I start rattling on about rock formations and taking photos, my boyish enthusiasm attracts short shrift.

Thankfully it only requires perhaps 20 minutes of walking for her heart to pump her life juices through her fingers and lighten her mood.  Walking is great for battling the cold, but it’s the stopping that walkers have to be mindful of.

The cliff top walking is pretty level-going but there is little to see of the coast and beach, since we are not long past high tide and a curtain of blackthorn scrub separates us from the cliff edge.  This latter is just as well, since the cliffs here have a habit of disappearing.  A few miles further west the cliffs of Exmoor are made of much harder stuff, but here we are walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs from the Jurassic period.  Who knows, one may be being exposed on the beach below us right now.

Near David’s Way an enlightened landowner has put a permissive path in to enable walkers on the Quantocks and those doing the England Coast Path to connect up.  I suspect it may be the result of one of those extra bits of farm subsidy that can be claimed by farmers.

A large yellow sign warns us that the coast path may not be accessible during high tides at St Audries Bay, since it crosses the beach.  This is the first we have heard about it and I’m bemused that the authorities have not negotiated a high tide route for walkers who may otherwise have to twiddle their thumbs for several hours.  The only other option would involve walking along the busy and narrow A39 for several miles.  We decide to press on in the hope that the tide will have fallen sufficiently to permit us safe passage across the bay.

At one point the path veers sharply inland and I wonder if a new path has been created after all for  high tide walkers, but it turns out to be a minor detour around a deep cleft at Essons Gully.  Normal clifftop passage is quickly resumed until we get to St Audries Bay.

“St Audries Bay – the tide is still a little high and I suspect we may have problems crossing.”

As we approach St Audries Bay I am still hopeful that we will have a cliff-top path, to avoid having to await low tide, or getting wet.  I spot a field full of cows and their calves and hope we are not to be directed through their field.  Female cattle with calves are more dangerous than an untethered bull.  Thankfully the path takes us down to the beach and we are presented with a quite different perspective from the one we had along the cliff top.

Now the cliffs look real and towering high.  What-is-more they don’t look altogether safe, with cliff-falls all along the length of the bay.  It is evident that the tide is still pretty high and on casting my eyes to the headland across the bay, it is apparent that we won’t get around it just yet.

A storm beach of large flat pebbles has been dumped at the top of the beach by recent storm waves, making progress tricky.  Lots of ways to kill ourselves here – cliff falls, drowning, or slipping-over and breaking necks.  Nonetheless it is a great place to examine what remains of a shallow sea that existed here 200 million years ago.  Earlier we passed an information sign which advised us that ichthyosaurs hunted in these waters, as did giant squid-like things in curly shells – called ammonites.  Betty is beside herself when she finds a massive rock jam-packed with bivalve shells, but it is too heavy to even lift and far too hard to smash.  I do have a go at smashing it down and a big lump bounces up and hits me on the knee – not a smart technique.

Waterfalls come cascading down the cliffs at regular intervals causing further rockfalls and landslips.  These reveal near-horizontal layers of Jurassic sediment, each representing the sedimentary conditions over perhaps millions of years.  Limestones laid down in a warm, shallow sea; red silt, sand and mudstones laid down under an arid sky and shales laid down in deeper waters offshore.  The geological landscape is like an open book of earth’s ancient history, ecology and sedimentation – the challenge is learning to read it.  After 3 years as a geology undergraduate I could just about manage my A,B, C.

Halfway across St Audries Bay we are drawn to climbing some steps leading up the cliff to a holiday park full of static caravans and chalets.  These are accompanied by a sign saying “private site – no entry”, which of-course we studiously ignore.  As I climb the steps I am already working out what to say if some Somerset jobsworth starts shouting at us – “Oi, get orf moi laand.”

“Hello, could you direct me to the office please.  We were passing and wondered if you might have a brochure, as we are thinking of coming in the summer.”

“Sorry we appear to have got lost – please could you show us which way to get to Watchet?”

“Bloody hell what’s all the fuss about we are obviously not disturbing anyone today – as there’s no-one here!”

As it happens no-one stops us, so I never get the chance to use my well-practiced lines.  The whole holiday caravan park is like a scene from The Birds.  Not a soul in sight, although we do hear some random banging from one building.  Keen to find a way through to the next caravan site we keep going west until we come to an area full of rubbish and a high double fence separating the two adjacent sites.  They obviously don’t get on with each other and don’t want any of their clients mixing with those of the competition next door

Realising that we are better-off taking our chances with the cliffs, the slippery pebbles and the sea, we return down the steps to enjoy the solitude of having the whole bay to ourselves.  In the summer we would be sharing it with hundreds of campers from Stalag Luft III held prisoner in the chalets above us. This solitude is the joy of having a Great Escape of our own during the winter months.

Back down at beach level we return to inspecting the 70 ft high cliffs.  The sea inevitably undercuts the base of the cliff when waves crash into it at high tide.  However, it is not just the water that eats at the cliff, but also the large pebbles stranded on the storm beach.  Having already smacked myself on the leg with a flying slab of fossiliferous rock I can vouch for the energy a flying rock delivers.  Multiply this a thousandfold and it is easy to see why the base of the cliff is wearing away.  The shape of the undercut is a smooth curve illustrating the fall-off in wave power as it smashes upward and its energy dissipates.  In fact concrete sea walls copy this shape to reduce the impact of storm waves.

Inspecting the crumbling cliffs I wonder how safe it is to be a camper here.  They are a constant threat to life and limb as the sea eats into them.  Full grown trees teeter on the cliff edge awaiting the next storm and I’m sure numerous wooden huts must have gone over the cliff edge on a cold stormy night.

The destruction is not just in a few isolated places either, with collections of tallus lying all the way along the cliff base.

Eventually we make it to the 70 foot high waterfall which cascades off the far headland Victoria Falls-like onto the beach below.  https://m.facebook.com/bbcsomerset/videos/st-audries-waterfall/545714123533739/?locale2=ff_NG. 

I can just make-out a small strip of rocky shore between the waterfall and the waves and manage to make it without getting my head or my feet wet.  Beyond is another world where a few hardy souls have braved the cool weather and wander the beach.  We alone have emerged from the eastern end of St Audries Bay, a lost world, and feel like Livingstone or Mungo Park returning from discovering the source of the Nile.

It seems that all these other people have found their way down to the beach by way of a steep slipway which winds down from the second camp site that we vainly tried to get access to.  The owners of this camp site allow drivers to pay for their parking and wander down to beach level unmolested by prison-camp guards.  Parking fees and patronage of the shop provide a financial incentive for this enlightened owner.  I know which site I prefer.

I have to wonder about the process involved in creating an England Coast Path (ECP).  To my mind the default route should always be along clifftops, sea walls, promenades and sand dunes.  Whilst the sea shore is the more interesting place to explore, practicality dictates that it should just be an option for ECP walkers, who may not be able to cope with the loose, slippery surfaces found there, or the limitations imposed by high tides.  This particularly applies to older walkers like ourselves.

Then there is the practicality and legality of providing access across what may be privately owned land.  There is a strong argument for ‘nationalising’ the 3 or 4 metres adjacent to cliffs.  I assume currently a system prevails whereby landowners are recompensed for allowing ECP walkers to cross their land, but suspect the owner of the land at the first of the St Audries Bay campsite was having none of it.  Perhaps he didn’t want the ‘great unwashed’ swarming all over his site.  In reality, the numbers of public involved are probably only in the order of dozens each day – some of whom might even fancy booking a holiday after seeing what is on offer.

Reading the local paper I discover that St Audries Bay Holiday Park has just been given permission to expand.  You would think this an obvious opportunity for a bit of quid-pro-quo by the County Council – making approval of the expansion subject to agreement to allow the ECP to pass through the holiday park.  Joined up thinking?  I think not!

“St Audries Bay cliffs naturally have a similar curved profile to promenade walls – it’s all physics dear boy.”

“St Audries Bay – collapsing cliffs, scots pines on the brink, waterfall at the headland.”

“Trees, a fence and a chalet await a watery grave on the beach below.”

“The St Audries waterfall – our last obstacle before returning to the cliff top.”

Climbing up the road from the holiday park, the coast path ducks right into some attractive woodland.  The trees are no more than a hundred years old but the presence of dogs mercury, hart’s-tongue fern and ivy suggests it was until relatively recently an area of ancient woodland – perhaps once part of Britain’s lost temperate rain forest.

Beyond the woodland we approach yet another holiday park, this time run by Haven Holidays.  As we walk the footpath through a field adjacent to the holiday park Betty realises that her boots are growing measurably heavier.  My own boots are accumulating masses of sticky clay soil, suggesting the underlying geology to be a clay.  Having lived in Suffolk on boulder clay, I can vouch for how difficult it can be to walk on clay.  Coming towards us, a young couple are walking the same path with gleaming white new trainers on their feet.  They will learn much from their brief foray I’m sure!

Skirting the Haven Holiday park we are directed across the course of the Doniford Stream whose waters drain from the Brendon Hills at the eastern end of the Exmoor National Park.  This stream can swell to a thunderous maelstrom whenever heavy rains fall on the Brendon Hills.  I spent 2 years with sixth form student groups studying this river, whilst employed as a Field Studies Council tutor at Nettlecombe Court Study Centre over 40 years ago.  Where did the intervening years go?

“The Haven Holiday park at Doniford – beware the sticky clay soil in this particular field!”

Scraping the last of the clay soil off our boots we have the luxury of walking on pavement for a few hundred yards.  Despite the benefits of walking on a pavement, we are glad to be directed down a track past an old lime kiln towards Hellwell Bay.  Working lime kilns were once a common site along the British coast, in fact across the whole of inland Britain too.  Wherever a lime-rich bedrock existed it would have been excavated and burnt in a kiln with wood, coke or coal.  The end product would have been quick-lime used to create lime mortar for the local building industry, or to be added to acidic soils to give a more acceptable pH.  A location such as Hellwell Bay, sitting on limestone rocks and close to the sea would have been ideal for transporting the lime elsewhere in the UK.

“Lime Kiln at Hellwell Bay – to create lime mortar from local limestone and ‘sweeten’ acidic soils.”

As we get down to the beach the tide is by now well out, revealing a cross-section through the folded rocks beneath our feet.  The sea planes-off any vegetation that may cover the exposed strata beneath, leaving sweeping lines of alternating dark and light beds.  The sea may eat through this rock with ease, but the power of the sea pales into insignificance when compared to the unimaginable power of the earth movements involved in contorting these rocks.  Bear in mind that the UK was at the very edge of the Alpine mountain building period when Africa and India slammed into the Eurasian continent.  Today bits of former seabed are now exposed high up in the Alps and even on top of Mount Everest.  The scale of the awesome power and the millions of years of time involved provide a point of perspective for we puny humans and our ‘three-score-and-ten’ years of lifespan.

Now I’m walking through a chapter of my own personal history.  Between 1980 and 1982 I regularly came down to Hellwell Bay with groups of students so that we could study the coastal erosion and geology here.  Forty years on and the cliffs must have retreated landward several metres.  Will the coast be several hundred metres further inland in 1,000 years time?  We have no way of knowing.

The previously sea covered rocks are wet and slippery, not least because their surfaces are coated with masses of algal slime.  This is of course literal ‘meat and drink’ (or should it be littoral?) for the molluscs that graze the rocks at high tide.  Not being quite so sure-footed as the seashore limpets and winkles, we have to tread carefully as we cross the bay and climb the steps on the far side.

Finally our destination comes into sight as we walk the flat clifftop area of grass to Watchet Harbour.  In fact it is arguably not a harbour at all any more, but a marina for sea-going pleasurecraft.  Back in 1982 I can remember commercial vehicles being exported from Watchet Harbour, whilst the local paper mill would have imported raw materials and finished goods through the port.

As we walk down the steps to the harbour wall we pass the last vestige of a World War Two pillbox which would have guarded this important, if small, port on the Bristol Channel, leading out into the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.  

Wansborough Paper Mill closed in 2015 laying-off several hundred employees.  In a town having a population of less than 4,000 this must have had a major impact upon the local economy.  Unlike many other seaside towns in Somerset and Devon, Watchet has never really had a fishing or tourist focus.  So what is the future for the community?   The East Quay Watchet web site gives an interesting perspective into the significance of the mill to the town.

https://www.eastquaywatchet.co.uk/learn/wansbrough

I’m assuming that the building of Hinckley Point C will bring much needed work to the townspeople of Watchet, but it will be initiatives like the East Quay venture that will be the future.  Here a collective of local ladies has developed this part of the harbour front as a cultural venue including galleries, studios, a restaurant and even accomodation.  Watchet has changed a lot since I was here in 1982, but it has a vibrancy I don’t recall from 40 years ago.  I think it could be a cracking little town to live and work in and is certainly well worth a visit if you are ever within 50 miles of it.

Having digested what the harbour has to offer, we decide to have lunch sitting inside a sort of ‘bus-shelter’ on the quayside.  It is occupied by a flock of pigeons which Betty sends away with a flea in their ear.  One of them however, keeps coming back – intent upon pecking the tarmac in front of us.  Despite lots of arm waving from Betty, the pigeon returns determined to finish its business.  It’s that kind of attitude that Watchet needs if it is to rise phoenix-like from the ashes.

Our lunch finished we decide to pop round the corner for a latte at one of the local cafes, whilst doubtless the pigeon and all his mates will be checking to see what we might have left behind for them.

In the cafe we get into conversation with a waiter who used to attend college in Bridgwater.

“A bus ride from hell,”he describes it, “we had to go via Taunton.

Until more local employment is forthcoming, it seems that a bit of deep thinking will be required to connect up the job hunters in Watchet with the jobs in Bridgwater.

We decide to walk back to Kilve, connecting up with The Coleridge Way around the Quantock Hills.  Coleridge is believed to have written a number of poems whilst living in Nether Stowey, perhaps the most famous being The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which he is believed to have written whilst walking from Nether Stowey to Watchet.  It seems we are in inspired company and I hope my writing improves from the experience.

On the way back a local chap guides us via some back street short-cuts to speed us to West Quantoxhead, where the Coleridge Way connects Nether Stowey to Lynmouth.  He explains how he retired to Watchet after a lifetime of working for EDF, the owners of Hinkley Point.  His wife however, still works 2 days per week in Weston-super-Mare, since she can find nothing locally.  I’m sure a bus service would help her journey too.  

Having walked the coast path in Norfolk and Cornwall, where the bus service for locals and visitors alike was very good, a similar level of service should be available along Somerset’s Jurassic Coast also.  People are becoming more aware of the need to exercise and appreciate the countryside, with the England Coast Path project a real booster to this changed mindset.  Hopefully more people will be inspired to take up coast path walking in future and the county council will add a regular bus service between Watchet and Bridgwater.  If not, then they will just have to walk there and back like us. 

Anyway it is a lovely walk back, despite being a little too close to the A39 if you like your walks to be on the quieter side.  Eventually we are reunited with our car at Kilve having spent an excellent day walking a lovely piece of the British Coastline.

“Woodland floor dominated by ivy, dogs mercury and hart’s-tongue ferns suggests it was once ancient woodland.”

“Limestone ‘pavement’ in the wave-cut platform – looks like someone has had their drive laid.”

“Hellwell Bay – shows sinuous folding of the rocks exposed in the wave-cut platform.”

“Watchet harbour – no-longer a commercial port and repurposed as a marina.”