Dancing Ledge

What a day. After the recent storms the sea was calm, the sky blue and Sun shone with a growing warmth, a fine day for a walk. The ground oozed water like a wet bath mat, saturated from the recent deluges water either stood where ever you looked or ran across the land in a filigree of shining wet paths.  From the cliff Dancing Ledge the view along the coast was glorious, not merely the beauty of the natural environment, but also realization I was viewing at least 4000 years of human activity.  Bronze Age burial mounds mark the dead, their settlements must be nearby too, although later activity and their ephemeral natural makes them invisible. Below us were the chain of quarries which run along this section of the Purbeck coast, stone has been quarried in the Purbecks since at least as far back as the the Roman period, right up to the present day, although these coastal quarries have not been exploited since the middle of the 20th century when they became unprofitable.  On the distant hillsides the strip lytchetts of Medieval farmers trying the utilize all the productive land they could, on the plateau of the same hill, on the cliff facing out to sea, the small Medieval chapel of St Aldhelm's. Whilst around the quarry in the middle distance, World War 2 fire trenches and a rare Allen Williams Turret, set to protect the nearby site of early radar experimentation.  Farmers still graze their livestock on the rough slopes and work the workable land. And yet the land appears wild and quiet, empty of activity.  Such a wonderful stretch of coast, no wonder it's a World Heritage Site.