Monday 18 May 2015

Studland Beach

Studland Beach has the best EVER description in the National Trust handbook. 

It starts off innocuously enough: "Glorious slice of Purbeck Coastline...gently shelving bathing waters and views of Old Harry Rocks" before throwing in "includes the most popular naturist beach in Britain" and ending with "Studland was the inspiration for Toytown in Enid Blyton's Noddy". 

How in the name of cream of tartar have I managed to visit 75 other National Trust properties before I got round to Studland? 

It turns out that Studland Beach is also a very beautiful place: 


Studland Beach

The beach stretches for four glorious miles, with views of the Isle of Wight and Old Harry Rocks, which you can just about see here behind this very rare sighting of the Scone Sidekick:


Studland Beach

But I will admit: finding out that the National Trust owns a 1km stretch of beach where you can walk around completely starkers is one of the more surprising discoveries of my life, right up there with Warren Beatty being Shirley Maclaine's brother, or Bruce Springsteen having written the song Pink Cadillac. 

The Studland scone
You may be disappointed to hear that I didn't see any naturists. I didn't see Noddy either. But I DID see some scones. 

I will be brutally honest here; my heart sank when I saw this specimen. It looked a bit well-fired for my liking. But faint heart never won fair scone, so I bravely tried it...and it was absolutely delicious. It was fresh, with a lovely soft middle and a slightly crunchy exterior. A 5 out of 5 if ever I saw one. 

Studland Beach scone

We stayed in Studland at the very lovely Pig on the Beach hotel - we later discovered that this had previously been Studland Manor where the Bankes family, the owners of Kingston Lacy (another successful purveyor of scones), had spent their summers. A very fitting end to our Dorset tour.

Studland Beach: 5 out of 5
Scone: 5 out of 5
Amazingness of the National Trust owning a naturist beach: 5 out of 5 

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