Where the steps turn right, a red mailbox is set into the wall (it conceals one of the ways into the secret chamber in the rock, or so a legend might say). As I was carrying my bicycle up here, with its bags of the same bright red, a gentleman about to post his letter exclaimed: "Oh, I'm just in time"—he thought I was the postal collector.

Emerging at the top of the steps, you are on the Bell Cliff, a terrace with a commanding view.

This must once have been a natural cliff, and some people remember it topped with a garden. It was called Beaufront until it became the Bell Cliff in 1646. As says the plaque on the wall of William Pelly's picture gallery: An alarm bell once hung on this ancient emplacement. It was a popular platform for election speeches in Parliamentary days.

The small plaque on the cannon says: This 6 pounder gun, a Swedish "Finbanker" of the period 1680-1730, formed part of the town's defences. After the Napoleonic wars it served as a mooring post in the harbour, from which it was removed and placed in its present position in 1971. The well-rusted cannon points east across Lyme Bay toward the place called West Bay. It does seem at times that the citizens of these parts suffered from a little naming-dyslexia. West Bay is on the eastern side of the bay; and the name Gun Cliff applies not to this promontory, with its gun, but to the lower one facing you, which sports not a gun but a large anchor.

(It has been known, on a Monday morning, to find that the cannon has been turned around by Saturday night drunks and threatens the town instead.)

The best viewpoint of all, from which you can expect to see the structure of the surroundings, is the far corner at the end of the parapet.

But the narrowing passage ahead gives a glimpse through into the main shopping street, and you may just wish to keep forward that way.