After a long wind round the side of Chideock Hill the high road descends towards the village of that name.  A stile on the left gives access to a footpath to the “Seatown” of Chideock.  The pedestrian should enter the meadow to rest and admire the perfect view down the V-shaped combe to the sea.  Away to the left Thurncombe Beacon lifts its dark summit.  The answering height to the right is lordly Golden Cap.  Its well-named crown is more than 600 feet above the waves that dash against Wear Cliffs below.

Chideock is a clean pleasant street of houses most of whose occupants let lodgings or cater for the passing traveller in one way or another.  The Perpendicular church was restored in a rather drastic manner about forty years ago; this brought to light a crude wall painting.  At the east end of the south aisle will be seen a black marble effigy of a knight in plate armour.  This is Sir John Arundell, an ancestor of the Lords Arundell of Wardour in Wiltshire.  The de Chideocks were the original owners of the countryside and in a field beyond the church to the north-east is the moat which once surrounded their castle, dismantled soon after the close of the Civil War as a punishment for the annoyance it caused the army of the Parliament in interfering with the communications of Lyme.  It changed hands several times during the war, but while held by the Royalists it seriously compromised their opponents on the west.

The Manor House is a seat of the Welds, a Roman Catholic family.  In the grounds of the manor is a very ornate church belonging to that communion and a cemetery that has an interesting chapel, the walls of which are covered with paintings.

The scenery is now becoming Devonian in character, of the softly pleasant aspect of the south, lines of hill occasionally rising into picturesque hummocky outline; wide troughed valleys richly timbered, with mellow old farmhouses here and there about their slopes, connected by deep narrow flowery lanes extraordinarily erratic in direction, or want of it.  The cider country is still far off, however; for Dorset, though the soil and climate are well suited to it, has not yet looked upon the culture of the apple as an important item in farming, and orchards of any sort are few and small in size.

The Lyme road climbs up from Chideock round the steep face of Langdon Hill and reaches its summit level, over 400 feet, about a mile out of the village.  In front, to the right, is Hardown Hill and to the left, Chardown.  Out of sight for the present, but soon to come into view again, is Golden Cap which may be reached by one of the roundabout lanes going seawards, with a short stiff climb at the last.  The view from the summit is as glorious as it is wide.  In clear weather the extremities of the great bay—­Portland Bill and Start Point—­can be seen, and most of the beautiful coast between them.  Passing between Hardown and Chardown the road drops to Morecombelake,