First leg of our road trip completed, we couldn’t get a more extreme contrast between our last post from Tebay Services and this place, Branksome Beach Café. One set amongst wild rugged moorland and the other on a beach looking out towards the Isle of Wight.

A different life

We are visiting our daughter’s new house. It’s big compared to the tiny one her and her family had in London and it’s in a very quiet street in a beautiful forested area. Without having to go on any roads at all you can take Branksome Chine (a very pretty wooded gully) down to the beach. The path drops you out right at Branksome Beach Café … how neat is that?

Indoor beaches

In the 1930s Branksome Beach Café was Britain’s first functioning solarium. Intended to provide a year round sunbatheing facility it had an indoor beach complete with deckchairs behind huge glass windows. Now the sand and deckchairs have long gone and it has developed into one of Dorset’s landmark cafés. It also makes a claim to be the home of the rock cake! My mother made rock cakes in such a way that you never had to question how they got their name.

Such a claim obviously requires testing so we got a one to share with everyone at our table. Whether the claim is true or not doesn’t really matter .. it was delicious and not too rock like! Luckily, they are not claiming to be the home of the scone … that would be simply ridiculous!

Local produce

Of course, we had to test the scones. We were sitting outside on the terrace overlooking the beach but on the way in we had noticed the scones. They were quite big so having already scoffed some rock cake we opted to share one. It came complete with a pot of jam and the ubiquitous Rodda’s Cornish Cream. Since we are relatively near Cornwall we have dropped our customary objection … it’s a local product down here!.We’re sure that the excellent service, the views out over the beach and the sea were all contributory factors in our decision to award a topscone. Well done Branksome Beach Café.

Prince Charles substituted for the Queen today at the State Opening of Parliament. It said nothing and perhaps the biggest news was that Kate, Duchess of Cambridge had travelled to Manchester on a charter flight in a Michael Kors outfit. Goodness, she’s almost common! Somehow all the pomp and pageantry seems hugely incongruous in times where more and more people are being forced to use food banks. Not that we have much room to talk, sitting here eating rock cakes and scones by the beach.

BH13 6LP       tel: BH13 6LP        Branksome

///water.singer.cared

ps: our  fabulous Toowoomba correspondents have sent us scone pictures from Angie’s Country cafe in Toogoolawah. Hands up everyone who knows where that is! Okay not too many.Presentation looks good as does the scone so if you ever find yourselves in Toogoolawah you know where to go.