Line in the sand

Poole Harbour is cold and forbidding, its icy waters lapping upon a frozen shore whose sandy matrix has surrendered to frost and now displayed the characteristics of set cement. Icy fingers augment this shoreline, the paths of water draining from the wet heathland, now resembling thick weathered bottle glass melted then re solidified. Around us a cold wind blows through the shore side shrubs and grasses, off across the mill pool still waters of the harbour, whilst residual snow can be seen on the distant Purbeck Hills.

The remains of a defencive line of formidable square concrete anti tank blocks extend into the harbour, now gradually undermined by nature, several have succumbed and now lay at jaunty angles. The rest of the line, which once extended across the headland to an impassable wetland, was blown in the late 1940's, other than this section of 18 and 3 at the edge of the wetland all that remains are clusters of regularly spaced concrete fragments.