CHAPTER X 



ST ALDHELM'S HEAD 



THERE are few finer stretches of coast-line, at 

 least in the south of England, than that which 

 lies between Peverel Point and St Aldhelm's Head, in 

 the Isle of Purbeck. The splendid cliffs, of varying 

 hues and colours, descend for the most part sheer into 

 the sea, forming a mighty bastion of rock, on the ledges 

 and in the crevices of which the sea-fowl breed in multi- 

 tudes. From the remote ages of antiquity these lonely 

 cliffs have been their breeding-places, and there, too, 

 many rare plants find a secure and congenial home, 

 forming here and there veritable rock-gardens on the 

 face of the perpendicular walls. 



The downs above are scarred and scored with numbers 

 of little stone quarries. Some of them were worked as 

 far back as the time of the Romans. Indeed, they have 

 given to the Isle of Purbeck a justly deserved reputation. 

 William Camden, who died in the year 1623, tells us in 

 his Britannia that " the Isle of Purbeck, which is full 

 of heath and forests, well stocked with fallow deer and 

 stags, has under ground, here and there, veins of marble 

 and many sorts of good stone, from which (as tradition 

 informs us) the Cathedral Church of Salisbury was 

 supply'd ; and large quantities thereof are carried to 

 London, with great advantage of the inhabitants." 

 And not Salisbury Cathedral only, but Winchester 



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