West Dorset Scenes

I have been looking at a long-unopened novel,“The Treasure of Golden Cap”, by Bennet Copplestone, (John Murray, 1922).

Although neither the storyline of the adventure, nor the genre, have any particular appeal for me, Copplestone evokes the spirit of place with remarkable skill. He is a sensitive observer and a master of the “landscape of the imagination” when it comes to West Dorset scenes, on land and sea. Consider these passages:

Bridport Harbour

“There was nothing to suggest, as their little ship swung gently under the eternal swell, that the eastern half of the West Bay, when a gale blows furiously out of the south-west, is the most unfailing death-trap on the coast of England. Then from Lyme right round to the Bill of Portland the whole sweep of the Bay is a deadly lee shore, broken only by that tiny passage- no wider than a second-class country road- which has been cut through the Chesil at Bridport Harbour. Thence to Portland the high bank of the piled-up Chesil is unbroken. A ship, driven before the south-westerly gales, which fails to slip through the narrow Path of Life between the twin piers of Bridport Harbour, is lost. It will grind its bones on the Chesil and the savage undertow, which scoops deep hollows against the ridge of shingle, will take full toll of the helpless crew…”

“It was a grey morning in early September, the wind blew savagely, the south-west wind, churning the waters of the Bay and driving great rollers in to crash heavily on the shingle or to burst upon the stout short piers which guarded the entrance to the Harbour.”


Golden Cap

“Lyme was a port of call, and they proposed to disembark at the Cobb and tramp back over the serried masses of cliff. As they steamed close under the yellow wall of Golden Cap they stared up its six-hundred-foot face to the flat crown of the summit. There are many landmarks, famous in sea history, upon the south coast of England, but none which can approach Golden Cap in simple majesty. Once seen it is never to be forgotten.”


Chesil Beach

"The sun rose upon a scene unlike any other in the fair realm of England. The men sat with their backs against the vast breakwater of the Chesil, no rude mass of large pebbles, but a soft pile of gravel beans. The stones were as uniform in size as if they had been passed through a riddle. And so it is always with the Chesil, upon which the stones pass in gentle gradations from the size of peas at Bridport Harblour to that of small potatoes at the juncture with Portland. A West Bay sailor flung upon the Chesil in thick darkness can say at once from the size of the shingle upon which part of it he lies…”

Dorchester

“Dorchester is a very admirable town. It is a bit of unspoiled Old England, confined within its encircling avenues and stretching out its long arms of oak and elms and chestnuts upon the roads which lead into its heart…And, beyond its confines…we come to the England of the remote unrecorded past- the tremendous British settlement and fastness of Maiden Castle, the Danish Camp of Poundbury, and the Roman Amphitheatre of Maumbury Rings.”


He is less enthusiastic about Dorchester’s more modern suburbs. The book is well worth reading if only for descriptive passages such as those quoted above.

The novel was reprinted in 1982, by Serendip of Lyme Regis.