Changing coastline at Warbarrow Bay

Warbarrow Bay is at the western end of the "ghost village" of Tyneham.

Until this year the bay had a beach of deep shingle with sand beneath it, and a narrow rim of sand at its edge. Now sand but not a single pebble is to be seen on the central three quarters stretch of the beach; the high seas have carried them and great quantities of their underlying sand away.

The cliffs along this coastline are unstable, at this point at the western end of the bay containing strata of Lower Greensand, Gault and Upper Greensand. The recent heavy rains have triggered significant rockfalls and landslips.

Here the newly uncovered strata exhibit a riot of colours.