The best of Dorset in words and pictures

Inspired by Hardy

The charmingly atmospheric drawings of Leonard Patten

Interestingly, Patten calls this St Alban’s Head, which was the technically incorrect name used mainly by mariners. Most land-bound folk correctly called it St Aldhelm’s Head. It is actually the further headland in this view from Chapman’s Pool and Patten has added a few squiggles to represent the coastguard cottages. The cliff in the foreground is Emmett’s Hill.

LEONARD Patten was born on Portland in 1867. The son of a bank manager, he was active locally as a painter, etcher and illustrator from the 1880s. On the national stage, he exhibited one work at the Royal Academy in London when he was only 22, and his drawing entitled ‘The Quay’ appeared the April 1899 issue of The Windmill, a rather obscure fin-de-siècle literary and art magazine of which only two issues were published. A humorous drawing by him was …

 

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