Dancing Ledge is part of the

Jurassic Coast The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about , and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-December ...

near

Langton Matravers Langton Matravers () is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset in the south of England. It is situated about west of Swanage town centre and south-east of Corfe Castle. In the 2011 Census the civil parish had ...

in the

Isle of Purbeck The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the n ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Dancing Ledge is a flat area of rock at the base of a small cliff. A little scrambling is required for access. It is signposted on the

South West Coast Path The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Because it rises a ...

a few kilometres west of

Swanage Swanage () is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck and one of its two towns, approximately south of Poole and east of Dorchester. In the 2011 census the civil ...

. Dancing Ledge is so called because at certain stages of the tide when the waves wash over the horizontal surface, the surface undulations cause the water to bob about making the ledge appear to dance.

History

The area was used for quarrying of

Purbeck stone Purbeck stone refers to building stone taken from a series of limestone beds found in the Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous Purbeck Group, found on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset in southern England. The best known variety of this stone is Purbeck M ...

and the ledge is a straight drop off into the sea which is deep enough for small ships to come right up to the ledge. This depth was exploited by local quarrymen in transporting the stone away from the area. Some of the stone removed by the quarrying was transported by ship direct from Dancing Ledge, round the south coast to Kent in order to construct

Ramsgate harbour The Port of Ramsgate (also known as Port Ramsgate, Ramsgate Harbour, and Royal Harbour, Ramsgate) is a harbour situated in Ramsgate, south-east England, serving cross-Channel freight traffic and smaller working and pleasure craft. It is owned ...

in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Leisure

A swimming pool was blasted into the rock for the use of local preparatory schools, particularly

Durnford School Durnford School was an English preparatory school for boys which opened in 1894 on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. The school occupied Durnford House, in the High Street of the village of Langton Matravers near Swanage, and was notoriously spart ...

sometime near the beginning of the twentieth century. The last surviving school (

The Old Malthouse The Old Malthouse School (The OMH) was a preparatory school in the village of Langton Matravers near Swanage in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, United Kingdom. The school was founded in 1906 by Rex Corbett, an ex-England football player, and s ...

, which closed in 2007) and one of the schools for which the pool was originally created recently arranged for debris, including several large rocks, to be removed, making swimming possible once again. The sea itself is not suitable for swimming, as there is no shoreline, simply a rock shelf under which people have been pulled by the current to their deaths. The cliffs above the ledge are a popular

climbing Climbing is the activity of using one's hands, feet, or any other part of the body to ascend a steep topographical object that can range from the world's tallest mountains (e.g. the eight thousanders), to small boulders. Climbing is done fo ...

location, with a small (10m) cliff close to the sea, and a larger (~20m) limestone cliff set back above this. It is also a popular spot fo
tombstoning

References

Gallery

Image:Dancing Ledge.jpg, On Dancing Ledge Image:On dancing ledge isle of purbeck dorset.jpg, View east from Dancing Ledge

External links

The Old Malthouse School
*Rock climbs at Dancing Ledge listed b
UKClimbing.com
Isle of Purbeck Geography of Dorset Geology of Dorset Jurassic Coast {{Dorset-geo-stub

History

Leisure

See also

References

Gallery

External links