Abbotsbury, Dorset: We edged carefully past a fine adult pair settled with their young directly in our path, bills ready to dart at unwelcome intruders
The Guardian, Monday 7 July 2014 21.00 BST
Along the clifftops high above Abbotsbury the road from Bridport to Weymouth offers views of the thin line of Chesil beach, the remarkable high shingle ridge that stretches ahead all the way to Portland and forms a barrier between the narrow, tidal lagoon of the Fleet and the sea. Inland, the eye is drawn to the dark, gothic silhouette of St Catherine's chapel, built on a hill by the Abbotsbury monks, and an ancient sea-mark.
The Chesil beach pebbles are famously described as pea-sized at Abbotsbury, at the western end, getting steadily larger as you head south-eastward to Portland, where they can reach the size of oranges. AtHive beach, below Burton Bradstock, west of where the real ridge begins, we had found some pebbles that were pea-sized and others the size and shape of broad beans, though down towards the water's edge at low tide they were smaller still – until sunbathers were stretched out in comfort on what was more sand than pebble. A little way east we went to Abbotsbury where the great pebble bank protects the west Fleet from high seas, while the inland heights also offer shelter to subtropical gardens in this favoured site where Benedictine monks built in the 11th century and then bred swans, as have their secular successors since the dissolution of the monasteries.
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