Deadmans Bay - Dead mans pool, Seatown Dorset

Deadmans Bay

This is wild coast - Deadmans bay, Hardy called it and hundreds of fine sailing ships were driven ashore in the past. November of 1838 no less than nine ships were racked within three days along this coast.

But it was November gale of 1822 that Seatown rued most. That year the great wind drove the sea to an unprecedented height, and several of Seatown's houses were wrecked. No doubt that gale took away a little more of the land, too, for the sea has been encroaching steadily and remorselessly thought the ages.

In the early nineteenth century there was a farm and beyond the Anchor Inn, where now the sea swerls on the shingle, and beyond that a road that led to Golden Cap.

In former times a large fair was help at Seatown on Whit Monday. This apparently, was day sacred to the eating of "furmity", and an old cottage woman who lived next to the inn would sell it at a halfpenny a plateful.

At dawn one day in June, 1685, Seatown fishermen sighted the fleet of the Duke of Monmouth, making for Lyme Regis .

Before ever the rebels landed at Lyme, however, however, a boat put off from one of the ships and three men were rowed ashore at Seatown. This advance party consisted of Colonel Venner, who was to lead the Duke's cavalry, Thomas Dare, who was to be Paymaster General, and another man called Armstrong. Dare, a Taunton banker and goldsmith, was shot dead some time later, after having brought friends and relatives and equipment to Lyme.

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Seatown Tourist Guide