Golden Cap. (John Bridle)
| The Char Valley Village Communities Action Plans 2003 |
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for Whitchurch Canonicorum, Wootton Fitzpaine and Stanton St. Gabriel Parishes |
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| Stanton St. Gabriel Parish |
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Golden Cap. (John Bridle) |
| Stanton St Gabriel Parish is bounded by the sea and the World Heritage Site and lies in the Heritage Coast between Seatown and Charmouth. The jewel in the crown of the parish is Golden Cap. This highest point on the south coast can only be reached on foot. The parish also includes the two other impressive hills of Stonebarrow and Chardown that are easy to access by a narrow twisting lane leading up from Charmouth to the National Trust car park at the top of Stonebarrow. The whole of the parish is south of the A35 main road. In recent years about one acre of the nine hundred and fifty acres covered by the parish has been lost to the undercliff and the sea each year. This constant stirring of the geological structure is the main reason why the coastal edge of the parish has provided so many and such sensational fossil specimens. A further consequence of this instability is that it is difficult to get down to the beach. The only direct access is a rather slippery path and then down some precarious steps cut in the cliff from the now deserted village of Stanton St Gabriel immediately at the western end of Golden Cap. The deserted village and its ruined 13th century church stir the imagination. In 1650 there were twenty households. The village was abandoned at the end of the 17th century. Most of Stanton St Gabriel was acquired by the National Trust under Operation Neptune in the 1960s and is managed so that many visitors can enjoy the unspoiled views from the hilltops and the quiet charm of the secluded farmland, woods and coastal path. The estate has many SSSIs and to ensure fauna and flora it is farmed in an environmentally friendly way. The residents of Stanton St Gabriel who do not farm, live either within a few hundred yards of the main road and look out on a landscape that has altered little since medieval times, or along the narrow twisting lane leading up from Charmouth to Stonebarrow and look out over Lyme Bay or the Marshwood Vale. |
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