In a way, it is more exciting to find a previously unknown place near to home, than travelling for an hour to somewhere further away. We recently went to an exhibition by a local artist, Jack Hicks, and in fact bought a couple of prints, but some of his work was of a coastal path not far from here which we didn’t know about… so today, as it was quite pleasant we went of on a little trip, to Clevedon, the next town up the coast from us, not even fifteen miles away!
We’ve been to Clevedon several times before, but I wouldn’t say we know it very well – as we discovered when we went to find the coastal path featured in the paintings we had seen… We weren’t entirely sure where to go, and in fact drove right past the road leading down to the car park… but find it we did.
The path follows the rather rugged coastline, with low shrubs and scrubby trees on the sea side, and slopes going up steeply to rather magnificent early nineteenth century buildings, no doubt once owned by the wealthy of Clevedon. The path led up and down, and then eventually down to a very small beach, Ladye Bay… which we had never even heard of! it’s very well-known in the area, so I’m not sure how we didn’t know of it.
It’s a most attractive little pebbly beach, in fact I discovered it is thought to be ‘one of the prettiest beaches along the Somerset coast’. From here we could see across to Wales, and looking south Clevedon’s lovely Victorian pier was clearly visible as the sun began to go down. Unlike our long flat uninteresting bay in Weston, formerly Glentworth Bay, now less imaginatively, Weston Bay, this little beach has interesting rocks, pebbles, cliffy bits, ‘densely vegetated cliffs’ and splashy sea! we didn’t stay long because the afternoon was drawing on, but we will come back – maybe with a picnic!
Lois Elsden 