Exploring the Bournemouth Coast Path

Hengistbury Head Visitor Centre

One of the two gates with carvings

The Hengistbury Head Visitor Centre has been open for a month and with the improving weather more vistors are drifting in.

It was good to be there on Monday and see a couple of solitary walkers going in to learn more about what can be seen from the coast path.

There is plenty of information about Iron Age pots and some are on display. Birds can be seen live on screens in their nests.

A reminder of what might have been is shown by a drawing of the castle which was commissioned by Gordon Selfridge. It would have been a rival to Castle Drogo.

Most interesting considering the storms we have just experienced is the description of the coastal protection around Double Dykes where revetments consist of steel cages filled with rocks.

The display claimed that the last storm was in 1987. This month’s will need to be added. At present the Southbourne promenade remains covered in sand and beach huts east and west have been damaged.

Maps and guidebooks are on sale in the shop along with local jam.

The staff is mainly volunteers and more people are wanted to help in the building which is a 200 year old converted barn with an extension.

At present the centre is open daily 10am-4pm; free. The nearby Hiker cafe is open daily 9am-5pm.

The Pig on the beach is to open at Studland in June.

The former Manor House Hotel will open its doors as The Pig on the beach on Friday 6 June.

The 23 bedroom house will feature a greenhouse restaurant, a room for private dinner parties and two treatment rooms.

Produce for the table is being grown in the walled kitchen garden and or sourced within 25 miles of the Isle of Purbeck.

The property was built about 1825 as the seaside home of the lord of the manor George Bankes who owned much of the area and lived at Kingston Lacey near Wimborne. The estate is now in the hands of the National Trust.

The best report of the St Valentine’s Night rescue from The Marine restaurant and cafe at Milford-on-Sea can be found in The Lymington Times and The New Milton Advertiser.

There has been  a landslip on Bournemouth’s East Cliff.

The fall was just west of the cliff lift.

This is not unexpected following the record wet weather and storms.

Meanwhile, the pine wooded cliff at Brownsea Island has suffered damage.

For the first time in weeks it is possible to say that it might be safe to walk along the cliffs and even beaches in and around Bournemouth.

The sensational St Valentine’s Night damage has been very well documented on today’s Echo blog. TheEcho team did a first class job last night and early this morning.

Avon Beach is severely damaged after what is possibly its worst storm since March 1935.

This was the occasion when the sand bar running east from the Black House was swept away. Last night’s storm might have brought some of it back.

Even more interesting has been the constant flooding of Shore Road and Banks Road at the start of the Sandbanks peninsula. The water has sometimes been very deep and today the pavement has been left ripped up. Across the Poole Harbour entrance at Shell Bay there has recently been big movement of sand.

Sandbanks was just a sand bar with some shacks until well into the 20th century. Development, which brought roads and defences, was slow due to fear that the peninsula would be washed away.

In 2010 the Environment Agency forecast sea flooding at Sandbanks within sixty years.

Emergency repairs have been carried out on Hurst Spit after the path was narrowed by waves breaking over the top.

Natural England and the Environment Agency agreed to bring forward shingle moving work due in March after reports of the storm damage.

The incident is a reminder of how dangerous the shoreline can be in storms such the one hitting us today, St Valentine’s Day.

Sandbanks Ferry is warning that pedestrians should only use the ferry if absolutely necessary on Friday 14 February. The forecast is very bad.

So St Valentine’s Day 2014 is not a day to explore the coast path.

Challenge Navitus has responded to the recent changes to the Navitus wind farm plans.

“The threats to the environment, tourism, birds and navigation remain largely unchanged, and the onshore cable route and disruption will be the same,” is the opposition response.

The proposed off-shore wind just south of Bournemouth has been scaled back just two weeks after Navitus held a final round of consultation meetings.

The turbines will now be 13 miles from Bournemouth rather than 12 miles although at Swanage they will still be 9 miles from the shore.

Full story in the Bournemouth Daily Echo.

“Once again the crew feel continuing is jeopardising the safety of the vessel, the crew themselves and passengers,” said a message from Sandbanks Ferry tonight at 8.10pm (Tuesday 4 February).

One minute later the Environment Agency said: “Keep away from seafronts and promenades when waves and winds are high –respect the sea and resist the temptation to ‘wave watch’.”

Very high winds are expected all along the Dorset and west Hampshire coast.