How to beach in… Swanage, Dorset

I am partial to a Victorian seaside resort, my childhood measured out in pebbled picnics, vicious ladybirds and pleasure piers that never quite delivered on their promise. Brighton, Eastbourne and Bournemouth, they’ve all since gone upscale in their own ways, though a feeling of snatched glamour lingers.

Swanage is altogether more upbeat, in part because the former fishing and quarrying hub sits on a bay rather than on a slab of sea. It curves from Peveril Point in town to Ballard Down and Studland Bay beyond. But Dorset’s Jurassic Coast getaway is also energised by its topography: it sits beneath Purbeck Ridgeway, which whispers at you to get off your deckchair and explore a stretch of the South West Coast Path or walk inland across its chalky hills.

A school friend first took me to Swanage when I was 16. He’d spend his childhood summers there with his grandfather, who gardened. My friend played the slot machines and the penny falls.

On our weekend visit last month, spouses in tow, we bypassed the Fairy Festival on Sandpit Field, a neat green overlooking the main beach fringed by palm trees and home to fêtes and live music, and made straight for the pier. At the entrance, my friend was given a soft cloth, some brass polish and free entry – a perk of being a pier plaque holder. A bunch of us had commissioned the plaque for his birthday and this morning was his first viewing. “King of the Arcade” reads the inscription, his secret out, his solicitor grandfather no doubt lively in his grave.

With that out of the way, our Swanage routine kicked in. Like all seasoned beachgoers who choose to return to the same location year in year out, the holiday is in the repetition and the absence of surprises.

First off, then, we hit the high street for picnic supplies, though it has everything you could want: crabbing gear, books, snorkels, cheesecloth skirts, toys, hiking boots, buckets and spades, cafés, pubs (many). We bought pasties from the Italian Bakery, crisps and fresh crab for sandwiches from Budgens. Then we set up our camping chairs, swimming costumes already on beneath our many layers, chatted, ignored our books, snoozed, discussed the temperature of the water, admired our neighbours’ three windbreakers, decided it was time for a post-sandwich ice-cream. My choice, pistachio in a tub, gave us something to talk about back in our chairs. Why did it come with a 40p surcharge? Were pistachios the new avocados and almonds? Was I licking an ethical minefield? We never found out, a Google search tacitly understood to be an affront to this charming time-warp of a holiday spot.

Ice-creams dispatched, it was time for a pre-dinner activity. It was too early in the season for Punch and Judy, and we weren’t in the mood for crazy golf in the oddly named Santa-Fe Fun Park. On a longer stay, we’d do the six-mile cliff walk from Durlston Castle to Dancing Ledge, or take the steam train to Corfe Castle. I fancied a sharpener at the Cabin café – you just follow the prom in the direction of the Old Harry chalk stacks until you see a blue sign saying Pimm’s O’Clock. But our routine dictated we nip up to the legendary Square & Compass in Worth Matravers, to queue for a pint served through a hatch, to sit at a stone table, to thrill all over again at the sea views and the reminder of our place in deep time this coastline affords.

Dinner that night was a toss-up between fish and chips on the Old Quay or a pub dinner at the Black Swan Inn, word of its French chef Eric the talk of the town. The talk is justified, the bargain “luxury fish pie” as described.

Every holiday must have its blow-out finale and ours the next day was a very fine dinner at The Pig on the Beach, perched above Studland Bay, and a night in their insanely tasteful double shepherd’s hut. In the morning, I walked down to the bay, boiled in the sauna and eased into the still, cold sea. Behind me, a line of toddlers padded across the sand, their own memories in the making.

Don’t miss: Fossil-hunting in Durlston Bay.

Stay at: The Pig on the Beach (thepighotel.com); swanage.co.uk

Photograph by Getty Images