Tyneham Dec 2013
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DESTINATIONS Location name DESTINATIONS Locationq THE LOST nameWORLD This spectacular section of the Jurassic Coast was closed to the public for 32 years, but visitors can now glimpse its rare beauty during weekends and public holidays. D-Day in Dorset Seventy years ago, the 225 inhabitants of Tyneham in south Dorset packed their bags and left, never to return. Today, only the abandoned landscape is left to tell the story… 40 COUNTRY WALKING DECEMBER 2013 D-DAY IN DORSET Tyneham HEY WOULD LIKE you to But Tyneham is more than a war u LAND WORTH believe that it doesn’t exist. memorial; it’s a vision of what England FIGHTING FOR There are no road signs, no would look like without us. The village and When rested from tourist leaflets and only its surrounding countryside were entirely armoured vehicles and heavy artillery, perseverance and cunning will closed to civilians for more than 30 years the tracks and paths Tlead you to their official web page. And yet, until in 1975, after years of protest from out of Tyneham make for spectaculr walking every weekend, dozens of cars and locals and prominent Open Spaces Society country. Here, the white minibuses pile into the car park, undeterred. campaigner, Rodney Legg, the government cliffs of Mupe Bay rise They’re here to see the crumbling stone finally began to open up dedicated trails to behind Worbarrow. houses and time warp church, and to the public. explore the neglected footpaths which soar Today, visitors are allowed into the in solitude over Purbeck ridgelines and range on weekends and public holidays, chalk cliffs. This is Tyneham: the village but the only development the land has which the Army would have you forget, but seen over the last 70 years is a car park which the people never did. and a new church roof. The diminished What is it about this empty corner of houses, bearing the scars from seven Dorset which keeps people coming back? decades of scorching summers and winter In part, it’s remembrance: remembering storms, are an eerie reminder of the that Tyneham died for D-Day. On 16th transience of human life, but the paths November 1943, with Hitler’s forces outside the village lead to another story: entrenched over the Channel, a notice was where civilisation has crumbled, nature pinned to all 102 doors in Tyneham. has flourished. Contained within its 26 lines, was a simple Tripping south over lush, raw message: “It is regretted that, in the grasslands, the trail from Tyneham vaults National Interest, it is necessary to move up onto Dorset’s natural viewing platform: you from your homes.” the high fringe of the Jurassic Coast’s Some residents had never seen beyond iconic white cliffs. From here, there is the northern edge of the Purbeck Hills nothing but gorgeousness. Only which cradle the village tightly against the uncluttered views, focused by the green Jurassic Coast, but by Christmas that year, lines of the Purbeck Hills which beckon their idyllic patch on the Isle of Purbeck feet onwards into an intimate landscape of was turned over to tanks, troops and ridgeways, hills and hollows – all offset gunfire: the training ground for the against the infinite ocean vistas Normandy landings of June 1944. Today, plateauing beyond the sea cliffs. This is a the stone village stands poignantly ruined. landscape which has clung onto its TOM BAILEY TOM Promises of a return for the residents were isolation and purity, an accidental victory broken, and the cottages, post office and for the British Armed Forces, whose tanks PHOTOS: school buildings have wasted away to and explosives kept the 20th century’s skeletal forms. They now stand like open twin blights of industrialisation and coffins, a graveyard of displaced lives. tourism at arm’s length. u “For roe deer, birds, rare plants and wildflowers, the firing range at Tyneham is a rare sanctuary” t THEN & NOW From left: Tyneham village before 1939; the same scene today, with the church in the background; residents Jack and Miggie Miller outside their home, Sea Cottage, in 1920. During the 1943 evacuation, they were relocated to Langton Travers at the age of 77; the display of Second World War memorabilia at Tyneham Farm. © COURTESY OF TYNEHAM ARCHIVE © COURTESY OF TYNEHAM ARCHIVE © COURTESY PHOTO: PHOTO: 42 COUNTRY WALKING DECEMBER 2013 DECEMBER 2013 COUNTRY WALKING 43 D-DAY IN DORSET Tyneham DESTINATIONS Location name In liberating the land from human t HAUNTED HOUSE “Their cottages are now occupation, the Army have nurtured The remains of Tyneham Rectory, once a grand two- storey building. The last rector, Revered Money, was residents of a different kind. Walking over serving abroad with the Royal Engineers when the gaping hollows, staring the Purbeck ridges through the silent Army cleared the village in 1943. ranges is a lesson in the benefits of our q NARROW ESCAPE emptily at one of the absence for wildlife. Even Rodney Legg, Tyneham’s neighbouring village of Worbarrow while arguing for public access to the land, was already in decline after the closure of the Coastguard Station in 1911 and by 1943, there were most beautiful coastlines has been forced to acknowledge that “there only ten residents left. Kimmeridge village fell just is a greater concentration of wildlife inside outside the designated firing range and survived in England.” the Lulworth and East Holme Ranges than the evacuation unscathed. in any of Dorset’s official nature reserves.” For roe deer, for birds and for rare plants are lucky, diving spectacularly to catch and wildflowers, the firing range at their prey in a breathtaking display of Tyneham is a rare sanctuary. precision aerobatics. And there is one undisputed star of this Continuing west past tumbling thriving menagerie. Following the natural landslides and the splintered rocky contours of the Purbeck Ridgeway east out platform of the Kimmeridge Flats – once of Tyneham, the airy skyline trail swoops utilised as a landing stage for smuggled down to meet the English Channel at goods – the coastal path rockets over 140m Kimmeridge Bay, where it’s possible to up to Tyneham Cap, from where the swing back towards Tyneham along the splendour of the Jurassic Coast is in full rollercoaster cliff tops. view. Directly ahead, the nose of Gad Cliff To walk on the soft chalk, high above the sniffs the salty air, overhanging the clay yawning sea, is to enter the playground of rock below and pointing to the sea, while the peregrine falcon. Having been almost just beyond, the clay gives way to chalk and wiped out during the pesticide era of the Worbarrow Bay coaxes walkers on with a 1950s and 60s, the uncultivated land here flash of its pearly whites. was one of the few places where the The bay itself, a sweeping crescent peregrine could continue to breed. fringed with foaming surf and smooth Slicing with ease through the offshore sand, was once home to a prosperous winds, they can still be seen regularly fishing community. Their cottages are now circling above the steely seas and, if you gaping hollows, staring emptily at one of u uHIGH POINT The striking portrait of Gad Cliff stands proud of Tyneham’s immediate coastline, peering into the English Channel from a height of 134m. A cliff to blow the cobwebs out. tSECRET LANDSCAPE Tyneham is cradled on either side by the Purbeck Hills, chalk down ridges which were made to be walked. The southern ridge, seen in the distance here, offers exceptional views over the coast and inland over the Isle of Purbeck. 44 COUNTRY WALKING DECEMBER 2013 D-DAY IN DORSET Tyneham p WORBARROW BAY In the bottom right of this picture, the ruins of Sea Cottage can just be mde out, PLAN YOUR TRIP a picnic bench now its only occupant. WALK HERE licensed restaurant. Beds from £18.50; the most beautiful coastlines in England. Turn to Walk 2 in this issue for your rooms from £66. After climbing to the lofty viewpoint of full route guide. For a personal walking WHERE TO EAT Flower’s Barrow and lapping up the tour from a local guide, including information on geology and history, try Stop by Clavell’s Café (01929 intimate panoramas of the Isle of Purbeck Jurassic Jaunts (07790 474 478, 480701, clavellscafe.co.uk) in Kimmeridge and its striking coastline, the heartbreak jurassicjaunts.co.uk). and enjoy a full English breakfast, of 1943 becomes tangible. Even the 21st- complete with locally sourced pork fi rst century day-walker will fi nd it hard GETTING THERE sausages. Lunch and snacks are also to leave this place, so to be turned out Tyneham is best reached by car. available. After a long day on the Jurassic after a lifetime here must have been Approaching from the west on the A352, Coast, a monster meal at SteakaSaurus harrowing. But the hardest thing to accept turn south at Wool to reach the B3070 at (01929 554 953, steakasaurus.com) seems today is that nature is better off without Lulworth Camp and head east, forking only right. As well as fi ne steaks, the menu us. To walk here is to step into a right at East Lulworth. Take the next includes the Pterodactyl Burger, a whole chargrilled chicken breast topped with conundrum: how can we enjoy pristine right into the village. From Wareham, drive south on the A351, turn right onto onion rings, bacon and salad. landscapes without leaving a dirty Grange Road and take the fourth left into humanity-shaped footprint? the village. “The challenge eventually,” Rodney Legg once said “is to solve the WHERE TO STAY contradiction of how we can conserve Bradle Farmhouse (01929 480712, extensive wilderness areas without having bradlefarmhouse.co.uk), located just three to fi re shells and missiles across them.” miles east of Tyneham near Kimmeridge, For now, Tyneham’s ceasefi re weekends is more like a grand manor than a are our chance to tip toe through quiet farmhouse.