In June 2026, it will be a full ten years since that fateful referendum led to Brexit! National Rejoin March (NRM) plans to mark the occasion in two ways. First, a team plans to walk from London to Brussels, where they will hand a book of messages from supporters to the EU Parliament. Second, the fourth NRM march (NRM IV) will take place in London on 20June 2026.
Dorset for Europe’s contribution to the NRM’s Rejoin Ramble is to send two representatives, one to join the ramble in England as far as Dover, the other to meet them in Brussels. To raise funds towards this, we held our own ramble in Purbeck, starting from the picturesque Worth Matravers.
Our chosen date was Sunday, 10 May 2026, and despite earlier forecasts of rain, it dawned dry but breezy. Nine of us met up at 1pm in the village car park and set off towards the coast for our six-mile hike. After such a dry spring, the ground underfoot, as we made our way over old strip lynchets, was very firm. At Seacombe, we climbed our first serious set of steps up to join the clifftop ‘Smuggler’s Walk’.
Much of the 630-mile South West Coast Path was created and maintained by Excise men and their Riding Officers, who monitored the coast to deter illicit trade from evading customs duties, so of course smugglers would make good use of the paths too:
“And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!”
You might well reflect as you take in the magnificent seascape along here, with the view stretching from the Isle of White behind you in the east, and Portland ahead, why it is that we lionise smugglers, pirates and mobsters – much as the right wing press promote grifters, tax-dodgers and money launderers?
As we headed from the Portland stone quarry at Seacombe to the one at Winspit, we learned from Tony, our walk leader, about the great shipwreck of 6 January 1786, when the East Indiaman Halsewell was driven onto the rocks beneath these cliffs, in a hurricane-force snowstorm. Quarrymen tried to help the distressed mariners up the cliffs, but only 74 of the 240 people on board survived. The tragedy received such national attention that King George III travelled down to pay his respects and view the aftermath, and such was the drama that many poems were written about it and, even fifty years later, Dickens wrote of it in an early work.
When we reached Winspit quarry, prominent notices warned that the caves were out of bounds due to geological instability. Tony said the quarries were in use until 1940, when the caves were taken over by both Royal Navy and RAF observation teams. It’s such an atmospheric and photogenic location that it’s been used for numerous films, from Doctor Who to Blake’s 7. The caves are home to fifteen species of bat, including the protected mouse-eared and greater horseshoe species. As for the stone from the quarry, such is the quality that it’s been used for cladding some of the most prestigious buildings in London.
Returning to our path, we found that new steps had been laid all the way up to the clifftop. After another mile, we climbed steeply to reach the landmark of St Aldhelm’s Head, with its ancient chapel and its Coastwatch Station. Aware that there are no public facilities there, because it lacks a water supply, we nevertheless crowded in with the two volunteers on duty for a chat about the invaluable work they do. Apparently, the Lookout is leased to The National Coastwatch Institution by the Encombe Estate for a rent of “one crab per annum if demanded.”
At this point, the company divided, reminiscent of the Fellowship of the Ring, but agreeing to meet up again at the Square and Compass. Aware of the arduous steps ahead, four turned aside to take a level route back to the village, while the remaining five continued on towards Chapman’s Pool, braving the ‘big dipper’ cleft with 266 steep steps down and a similar number back up Emmett’s Hill on the other side. The plan had been to stop to regain our breath and have a snack at the stone benches and table of the Royal Marines memorial but, knowing the other four had a shorter route back, we sped on downhill towards Valley Bottom.
Here we enjoyed a change of scenery as we followed a track through woods along a steep-sided dale, before turning right, through a kissing gate and up a gully. We emerged into fields, with a view across to our left of the woodhenge structure next to the car park but taking a shortcut towards it would have meant bypassing the pub, so of course we carried on!
Between buildings we found ourselves passing a small playpark to reach the road, where turning left and then bearing left twice led us past the church, the village shop and the pond, to reach the venerable Square and Compass Inn.
And what a pub it is! It’s been here since time immemorial, it serves beer and cider straight from the barrel, it serves top notch pasties, has its own museum and, more often than not, there’s something happening, whether Morris dancers, craft stalls, accordion players by a roaring log fire or even, if you’re lucky, a string quartet. We had to content ourselves with the sea views and the tame birds as we quaffed our well-earned drinks and plotted our next pro-Rejoin activities: the Ramble to Brussels and the NRM IV March on 20 June 2026, to mark the tenth anniversary of that catastrophic referendum!
