Monument / Man O War, 38cm x 28cm, Fountain Pen and Watercolour, Fabriano F5. Dorset Jurassic Coast Durdle Door Lulworth  Mupe Bay Seascape Cliffs Rocks Sea Painting

Jurassic Jaunt Part 2 – Man O War Went Thru The Durdle Door And Got A Dungy Head

Previously before going through the Durdle Door…

So I get on the bus and head to Durdle Door Holiday Park – I’d seen the stop on the bus going to Eweleaze Farm (which for hot showers, water, toilets and decent food, coffee and shop turned out to be only £10 a night, it was like a festival without the music, it was highly recommended) – and was greeted getting off the bus by an ominous sign. The Weld family own this area – pretty much exclusively, and it’s weird for an UNESCO World Heritage site – signs saying everywhere this is England’s only natural UNESCO site to be so commercial and overdeveloped?

I should have turned around and gone back to the Red Lion at Winfrith Newburgh, which I’d passed on the bus at this sign of naked monetary ambition over natural beauty….but I didn’t. I had a heavy bag and wanted to see if they had space. They had – but at £34 a night – no reduction for backpackers. Same price if you have a giant mansion of a tent and gas guzzling 4×4 car and a family of 20 vs someone who walks everywhere and has a tiny tent.

This tells you everything you need to know about Durdle Door Holiday Park and their idea of ecology and sustainability – but there’s much much more as I stupidly decided to eat the cost because of the location.

At least at that cost the party tents won’t turn up, I thought (famous last words…), and there is food on-site with it’s own pub, the Man O War. (Although the receptionist had rather bitchily said that the Red Lion at Winfrith ‘might be more my thing for food’ when I paid in advance for my stay – big assumptions there, and again, another red flag).

Which turned out to be fully booked both nights for food ‘because we have music on’…which turned out to be a guy with an iPad one night, and a band the next. I could do takeaway – of course at the same full price and in the rain as it turned out one day….err nope. The Spar shop is friendly and nice and has a coffee machine – which was lucky as it turned out.

The Man O War pub thinks it’s a nice posh place, but actually feels more like a working men’s club with fairly expensive food. A real feeling that it’s a local pub for those staying in the mobile homes (sample prices – £48-98,0000 each) and not for us dirty campers. But not posh by London standards.

I pitched my tent in the Rookery (their name, which sounds romantic but you quickly find out why the mobile homes and caravans refused to stay there – the birds aren’t as noisy as I expected but they do shit on your tent!). So given the food situation I walked along the road to Lulworth Cove via the fish and chip shop. I ate the chips while sitting at Stair Hole (as featured in the classic Nuts In May) and then did an ink study in my etchr sketchbook as it went dark on the headland back towards where I came – rather too close to the edge for my liking!

That was because lots of people were sitting up here, treating the steps – a remains of a building – as a sort of territory, guarded eternally by couples. So I had to sit on the path.

Lulworth toward Durdle Door at dusk, Fountain Pen and Wash, A4 etchr sketchbook Dorset Jurassic Coast Cove Mupe Bay Cliffs Seascape Sea Painting
Lulworth toward Durdle Door at dusk, Fountain Pen and Wash, A4 etchr sketchbook

I don’t remember all the ropes and all the signs from when I walked it years ago? I didn’t like those, it felt a bit Disney (then again I saw an Italian father ignore the ropes and walk down to the bay at Stair Hole, so I guess people are ignoring them and eroding the site – sometimes fame is the worth thing, and people have talked about how UNESCO sites are quite often ironically ruined by overdevelopment and tourism, the very protection is a curse).

I then walked back over Hambury Tout to Durdle Door – I had done this before, I had walked from Lulworth to Weymouth in one hot day once – but I’d forgotten how steep it was. And as I got to the top it was misty, and I had forgotten about the glowing monolith of the electronic sign at Durdle Door car park. I got a bit lost in the dark but found the campsite and it’s cawing trees hidden between the sprawling mobile home and caravans.

Next day: Durdle Door! And picking up the pace, I felt I had started slowly, I needed to do more watercolour work. Although first: coffee!

Previous day during the rain I’d seen the local Londis Lulworth Stores had coffee, but the surly woman didn’t seem that happy to see me and was busy barking at any infraction from tourists.

I had decided to take my flask and fill that – she refused ‘elf un safedy’, so I got far too many black coffees and poured them into my flask, spilling a little. I got barked at for that ‘why didn’t you do THAT outside?’ – because it’s raining, there’s no tables and nothing but a busy road?

I skulked out and added the sugar, milk and some brandy on a bench in the rain, although it was clearing. I think that was the low point of the trip, I met some nicer locals later in a pub and we laughed about her, she’s well known for her rudeness, but my impression of Lulworth was rather permanently soured by the Holiday Park experience and that woman.

You get the impression that most see the tourists as an inconvenience or a pest – even though that keeps their property values high or employs them? It’s like some Mike Leigh pettiness had entered their hearts.

So I went to the far friendlier Spar machine for the rest of my stay.

Unlike that grey misty day, it was bright sunshine and I went down to the Door – to find ranks of people there, I worried there might be a queuing system (there wasn’t). I decided to not go where everyone was going and head onto the headland above Man O War bay.

I already posted about my painting featured above on Instagram at the time, sitting on the edge of the cliff looking down…it got rather dizzying. Extreme plein air watercolour – and not the only time! I keep forgetting to say this – but this work like all the non-sketchbook pieces is for sale.

I was also fascinated by the massive ant-like lines of people heading down to Durdle Door – weirdly ignoring Man O War, I wondered if you could get down there only by boat, and bemused a couple who brought chairs right to the cliff edge to picnic, like a modern day Keith and Candice Marie. So I did a quick watercolour in my etchr A4 sketchbook.

Durdle Ants / Chairs & Doors, Man O War and Durdle Door, Fountain Pen and Watercolour, A4 etchr sketchbook. Dorset Jurassic Coast Lulworth  Mupe Bay Seascape Cliffs Rocks Sea Painting
Durdle Ants / Chairs & Doors, Man O War and Durdle Door, Fountain Pen and Watercolour, A4 etchr sketchbook.

I then descended into Durdle Door via the many steps – I could see now why the queues were forming, there are many steps down, and it can be a little slippery! I started drawing the Door itself and lots of Indian and Asian children approached and asked to see my work and asked me very intelligent questions and comments.

One remarked that that my work was abstract yet representational – a comment that sparked a lot of later work and exploration.

How different British art education is to the rest of the world!

I wish our education system was that good, and had kids that bright. The area is popular in part because many films have been shot here – and one of the recent ones was a Bollywood film, hence I guess the Indian families diving into the massive waves on such a changeable day.

I was told by locals that the plot of the film said you had infinite life if you swim through the door – and apparently people who tried have had to be rescued or died (I don’t know if either of those are true, having not seen the film). I know that given the tides, to try that would be a death wish.

Doodle Door (Durdle Door), Kuretake 40 Brush Pen and wash, A4 Sketchbook. Dorset Jurassic Coast  Lulworth Man O War  Mupe Bay Seascape Cliffs Rocks Sea Painting
Doodle Door (Durdle Door), Kuretake 40 Brush Pen and wash, A4 Sketchbook.

This is the piece I worked on when fielding questions about my work – a brush pen piece with wash. The name comes from someone I met later in the trip who kept calling it Doodle Door.

And after that I decided to do another piece of the cliffs, also brush pen – but you might notice the blotches and spots on it. Well that’s because the heaven’s opened when I nearly finished it, and was exposed with the wind and rain…all the intrepid swimmers scarpered, and I got drenched. That called it a day, it was amazing how quickly it went from sunshine to dark misty rain. Hanbury Tout is quite often drenched in mist, I’ve been past there several times in complete white out.

But I did come back later, after my meal and a shower at nearly 1am. The weather had cleared, and it was amazing to be at Durdle Door at night with the moonlight (that’s the moon not the sun!). Not totally recommended walking up and down those now-slippery steps in the dark with a torch while slightly sozzled, but so beautiful and I had the place to myself.

That was part of the reason for accepting the holiday park’s eye-watering cost.

Next day I decided to check out the other side of Durdle Door – the mostly neglected Man O War bay I’d painted. I walked down the quieter steps and took some photos – I was so fascinated by the Purbeck Beds, those sandwiches of straight rocks like a geological Viennetta – and then walked along to St Oswald’s Bay, the next bay along before Dungy Head.

I was worried that I might get cut off by the tide, but it turned out there was a path up by Dungy Head that comes out by a house called Oswald (hence the local name for it). That path connects to a road down to Lulworth, the one that passes the Coastguard house. One of my secret spot recommendations.

So I did an ink and candle brush pen drawing of Dungy Head – and also the piece named after the old children’s joke ‘Why Did The Beach Blush?’ which is because I was sitting by the shoreline and was fascinated by the seaweed. The tide came in while I was doing it, so it was a rush!

And then back to Lulworth…but that’s for part three, along with an unexpectedly noisy night, mods and mupes and some more extreme watercolour.

  • Part 1 – White Horses, Parachutes, Amazing Pebbles & Kites
  • Part 2 – Man O War Went Thru The Durdle Door And Got A Dungy Head
  • Part 3 – What’s a Sheep Lulworth with All MOD Cons?
  • Part 4 – Mupe Bay & Great Fossils of Rock
  • Part 5 – Corfe Castle & St Edward The Martyr
  • Part 6 – Corfe Castle – Escape from the Model Village
  • Part 7 – Swanage Around The Globe On A Tilly Whim

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