A great coast walk to a great pub: the Anchor Inn, Dorset

Dramatic views, a jungly undercliff and geological wonders are the highlights of this South West Coast Path route to a brilliantly sited hostelry with great beer and food

Some walkers find coastal walks dull. Their main gripe is sameness: too blue, too green, too straight, too twee. Sometimes they say it’s not “real” enough, by which they mean they prefer the grot and slog of mud and mountains. I defy any of these people to walk from Seaton to Seatown and not admit they are, at least sometimes, completely wrong.

Here on the Devon-Dorset border drama abounds. For centuries, the constant assault of waves and wind has warped the land and kept cartographers in work. Between Seaton and Lyme Regis, a series of landslips produced a five-mile undercliff, a rocky shoulder of clefts and gullies. The largest slump, on Christmas Eve 1839, dragged down a portion of wheatfield, somehow sufficiently undamaged for harvest the following summer. Farmers tried to keep the land in use, particularly with sheep, but the uneven terrain made things impractical and, after eventual abandonment, the place went wild – truly wild.