Tides of Change - TOUCHING THE TIDE › assets › Documents › Tides-of-Change-… · Tides of Change 2 million years on the Suffolk Coast 5 2 Origins of the landscape Suffolk is

Tides ofChange

2 million years onthe Suffolk Coast

Tim Holt-Wilson

How to use this bookThis is an introduction to over 2 million years of change on theSuffolk coast. Rising seas and surging ice sheets have come andgone, leaving a legacy you can discover for yourself. We suggest youstart by flicking through the book and finding a few sites that catchyour interest, then plan a visit using the map and access detailsinside the back cover. Some words which may be unfamiliar to youare listed in the glossary. All sites can be visited at your own risk.Please stick to beaches and paths, and follow the Countryside Code.

Dead people don’t enjoy life The seashore can be a dangerous place so treat it with respect. Don’t get cut off bya rising tide or crushed under a cliff fall (soft cliffs like ours can give way withoutwarning even in fine weather). And don't push your luck by standing on the cliff edge.

AcknowledgementsMoira Chapman and Corinne Cappell (SCDC) – Felixstowe historyAlister Cruikshanks (UKGE Ltd) - Easton Bavents palaeontologyRoger Dixon (GeoSuffolk) – Red Crag stratigraphyBill Jenman - editorialAnn Trewick (Felixstowe Museum) – Felixstowe history

Photograph creditsAll photographs © TD Holt-Wilson unless otherwise credited.

Designer: Rolando Ugolini, Design & Print, Suffolk. Tel 01473 620600

Tides of Change 2 million years on the Suffolk Coast2

This book is published as part of the Touching the Tide LandscapePartnership Scheme, with grateful acknowledgement of support from theHeritage Lottery Fund

Respect NaturePlease don’t trample on vegetated shingle, a surprisingly fragile habitat, andsteer clear of fenced areas with ground nesting birds in spring. Dogs on leadsnear these places too please.

Key factors are the ready availability of mud,sand and shingle, and their lack of resistance tothe sea. The Suffolk coast has advanced andretreated many times on the western edge ofthe North Sea, and its soft sediments havecontinually been rearranged. It is one of theyoungest parts of Britain, and has much incommon with the Low Countries; we maycontrast it with the indelible granites of LandsEnd or Ben Nevis. In Eocene times (56 to ~34million years ago) this area was part of a tropicalsea; in the Pliocene, from around 5.3 millionyears ago, it lay under temperate waters. A mere450,000 years ago it groaned under an ice sheetperhaps half a mile thick. Each period has left atemporary legacy in the rocks of Suffolk: awealth of sands, gravels, silts, clays andlimestones. The result is a complex archive ofevidence about past life, including humans.

Suffolk’s geology is rich in evidence for naturalenvironmental change, particularly thesuccession of climatic shifts over the last 4million years. Today we are entering the

Anthropocene Epoch, when the effects ofhuman activity are becoming widely marked inthe geological record, and human-inducedclimate change is underway. The closesthistorical analogue we have for the predictedclimate of 2100 AD is the mid-Pliocene warmperiod, about 3 million years ago, when theearliest Red Crag strata were laid down andglobal mean temperatures were 2 to 3º C higherthan today. Looking forward a thousand years to3000 AD, the closest likely analogue would be

Tides of Change 2 million years on the Suffolk Coast 3

1 IntroductionThe Suffolk coast is a frontier landscape where the North Sea recycles land, a processwhich has been happening for million of years. While visitors may experience thebeauty and tranquillity of this coast, local towns and villages know that the NorthSea gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Shingle can bank up in oneplace while metres of cliff disappear overnight in another. Dynamic sites such asOrford Ness symbolise the balance between creation and destruction played out byland, sea and air along the Suffolk coast, and they represent true wilderness.

Shifting tidal bars at the mouth of the River Ore,Shingle Street, Hollesley.

Ice Age drama at Bawdsey cliffs: grey mudstonesof the London Clay were plastically deformed bythe weight of ice sheet which deposited the browntill at the top of the cliff, so squeezing the gravellysands of the Red Crag into a trough-like structure.

the Earth during the early Eocene Epoch, c.50million years ago, when the London Clay wasbeing deposited and the world was perhaps 6ºCwarmer, and there little or no ice at the poles.Suffolk’s geology invites us to understand moreabout the drivers of, and boundaries between,natural and human-generated climate change.

This book is intended as an introductory guideto the coastal geodiversity of Suffolk, the first ofits kind. It focuses on the stretch from Pakefieldto Felixstowe, taking in a range of publiclyaccessible geological features and landforms,telling the story of the physical landscape we seetoday. Many of these places are designated Sitesof Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) or County

Geodiversity Sites. Using this book as a startingpoint, you may go on to discover them in moredetail using the resources and referencesprovided. A glossary is provided to give moredetail about key words and concepts.

Confronted by the unfamiliar mass of sedimentsin the crumbling cliffs at Covehithe or the sea-sculpted shingle banks at Bawdsey, visitors mayuse this book to guide them through visiblecomplexity towards the essentials of what thereis to know. In doing so, I hope they will discoversome fascinating new places. I also hope theywill come to appreciate the dimension of deeptime which underlies the world around us: thevalue of Suffolk’s rocks and sediments aswindows into the past and a guide to the future,and the temporary nature of everything we see.

The Suffolk coast is a place for contemplation aswell as exploration.


The Eocene sea-bed c.53 million years ago, atNacton Cliff. Pale bands of mudstone in theLondon Clay are evidence of volcanic ash fallsinto the sea. Carbon dioxide from thesevolcanoes contributed to making the earlyEocene a ‘greenhouse’ world.

2

-4

0

+4

1.5Tem

per

atu

re v

aria

tio

nfr

om

pre

sen

t OC

(ap

pro

x)

1 0.5 0

2 million years climate change graph

Warminterglacialperiod

Cold glacialperiod

Adapted from the chart 'Five million years of Climate Change from Sediment Cores'by RA Rohde, courtesy Wikipedia.

Millions of years ago

Eleven thousand years ago, Suffolk was anupland on the edge of a vast plain. Most ofwhat is now the North Sea was undulatinglowland covered with lakes and rivers, and apatchwork of birch and pine thickets and herb-rich tundra. Sea levels were some 100 m (300 ft)lower than today, as water was locked up in thegreat ice sheets. We now call this lost landscapeDoggerland, and it was home to a significantseasonal population of human hunter-gatherers;their spear points have been trawled up fromthe seabed by fishermen many miles out to sea.The land was crossed by herds of woollymammoth, reindeer and wild horse, and homefor birds such as dotterel, ptarmigan and snowyowl. Suffolk’s meltwater rivers drained into thishinterland, their valley floors deep below thesurface of today’s mudflats.

Sea levels began rising about 10,000 years agoas the climate warmed up, driven by variationsin the Earth’s orbit round the sun. Forests began

thickening and spreading; Ice Age speciesretreated northwards or became extinct.Doggerland was progressively submerged by thesea. By 8,500 years ago Britain had becomeseparated from the continent, though what isnow the offshore Dogger Bank survived as anisland for perhaps another 1500 years.

This period between the end of the Ice and theintroduction of farming is known as theMesolithic period (Middle Stone Age), and ourancestors continued to live by hunting andgathering. Doggerland was the heartland ofMesolithic life in Western Europe. Now ourancestors’ encampments lie beneath the presentseabed or deep beneath Suffolk’s estuaries,swallowed by the rising sea.

By 7,000 years ago the coastline of Suffolk laysome 7 km to the east of its present location,and the land was forested with oak, elm, limeand alder. Some 5,000 years ago, farmers


2 Origins of the landscapeSuffolk is a land at the frontier of change. The land of Suffolk we see today has beenintimately linked with the North Sea for many millions of years. Sea levels haverisen and fallen; ice sheets have come and gone: a succession of sands, gravels, silts,clays and limestones have been left behind as evidence, capped by the thin layer ofsoil we stand on. The land itself is gently sinking, as part of continuing crustalreadjustments after the Ice Age. The coastline of the North Sea has always been apoint in time, not a fixed line on the map. Only the pace of change has varied.

Mammoth jaw dredged fromthe North Sea off theSuffolk coast. Photocourtesy Rachel Bynoe,University of Southampton

started to clear the forests and divide up theland, marking the start of the Neolithic (NewStone Age).

The Suffolk coastline lay much closer to its present day position, and began to resemblethe one we know today. Mudflats with tidalchannels and creeks slowly spread inland up the lower river valleys, and shingle banksand spits were formed by tidal and long-shoreprocesses.

Slight adjustments in relative sea levels aroundthe North Sea since that time have causedcoastal environments to fluctuate. This had big

implications some 1,600 years ago, when risingsea levels in north-west Europe forced coast-dwelling groups of Anglian and Saxon tribalfarmers to leave their homelands. They migratedwestwards to found Anglo-Saxon England,including the Kingdom of East Anglia.

We are now entering another chapter in thestory of Suffolk’s evolving coastline. Globalwarming is predicted to raise sea levels by up to80 cm (31”) by the year 2100, and bring moreand more powerful storms. Climate change willreshape Suffolk’s coast, making some placesuninhabitable but creating opportunities forwildlife habitat creation, as shorelines retreatand coastal marshes move inland.

Humans have a long history of adapting to thechallenges of environmental change. The NorthSea is a reminder to the people of coastal Suffolkthat they must make plans for the future.


Progressive sea-level rise in the North Sea basin,between 9600 and 6000 years BP, showing theshrinking of Doggerland and the establishment ofa through-connection to the channel after about7,000 BP. From a display panel at theLandesmuseum Natur Und Mensch at Oldenburg,Germany.

Photo courtesy of the Landesmuseum Natur Und Mensch,Oldenburg, Germany - http://www.naturundmensch.de/.

Visitors will see a dark bed of dense, grey-brownmud at the base of the cliffs south of LighthouseGap. This is the Rootlet Bed of the famousCromer Forest-bed Formation, named afterdeposits of roughly the same age found in northNorfolk. It tells a story of life on the forestedfloodplain of a big river during one of the warmperiods of the Pleistocene Ice Age. The river washuge, and probably drained much of centralEngland. The mud is compacted, organic-richsediment containing plant and animal fossils,evidence of life in conditions similar to southernEurope today. On drier ground, the forest wasmostly pine and alder, with spruce, birch, oak

and hazel. There were marshy grasslands andreed swamps on the valley floor, with bulrushesand warmth-loving water fern. Animals includedfamiliar species such as wild boar, fallow deer,hippopotamus, lion and spotted hyena; extinctanimals included straight-tusked elephant, giantbeaver and sabre-toothed cat. We can also addearly humans to the fauna.

In 2005, the scientific journal ‘Nature’announced that finds of human flint tools at


3 Pakefield cliffsClose to the built-up areas of Pakefield and Kessingland, thebeach and cliffs offer an escape into a wilderness of sand,sea, wind and tides. The cliffs present a broad, impressivefront to the North Sea here; an array of greys, browns,whites and yellows draw the eye.

The brown sediments of the Rootlet Bed can beseen at the base of the cliffs between Pakefieldand Kessingland.

Pakefield were the earliest recorded humanactivity in northern Europe. These includedworked flakes and choppers made of black flint.They were found in the Rootlet Bed andoverlying river gravel known as the Unio Bed,named after the mussel shells found in it.Magnetic analysis of the sediment along withinformation derived from the evolution of voleteeth suggested that it could be dated to over680,000 years ago. The human species waslikely to be Homo heidelbergensis, thought to bethe common ancestor of both modern humansand Neanderthal Man. Heidelbergers in Europetypically averaged about 170cm (5ft 7”) inheight and were robustly built, with powerfuljaws. They made hand-axes and hunted withsharpened wooden spears.

The overlying strata in Pakefield Cliff areevidence for later environmental change. Sealevels rose, depositing a sequence of mostlyshallow marine sands and gravels. At the top ofthe cliff, the solid-looking grey clay containing

chalk pebbles is a till, laid down beneath amassive ice sheet during the Anglian glaciationabout 450,000 years ago. It is known as theLowestoft Till Formation, a major component ofthe geology of Suffolk.


A scene at Pakefield during a warm interglacialperiod 680,000 years ago.

The antlers of Dama roberti, a newly discoveredspecies of fallow deer, from Pakefield. © NorfolkMuseums Service (Norwich Castle Museum andArt Gallery). Photograph by Dr Marzia Breda.

© Beverly Curl

As far as we know, Benacre Ness began life inTudor times near Southwold. Two hundred yearsago it was at Covehithe, 4 km (2.5 miles) to thesouth; a hundred years ago it was at Benacre. Itis moving steadily northwards at a rate of about20 m (65 ft) per year, forming a truly dynamiccoastal feature. A hundred years from now, if itcontinues its present rate of progress, it willprobably have reached Pakefield.

‘Ness’ or ‘naze’ is a Viking word for a coastalheadland. Nesses are found where converginglongshore water currents and tidal flows create acomplex onshore build-up of shingle. Somenesses, as at Orford, have developed a long spitin the direction of the longshore drift, whileothers such as Dungeness in Kent, have a stabletriangular shape. Scientists disagree howBenacre is being formed. The simplestexplanation is that waves and tidal currents buildup shingle on its northern side but scour it awayfrom the southern end, thus causing a generalnorthward shift. Sediment is accumulating herewhile it is being removed from other parts of thecoast, as at Covehithe 4 km (2½ miles) to thesouth. An arrangement of offshore ebb andflood channels and sandbanks may be importantfor transporting and storing this sediment,which is almost entirely rounded flint pebbleslike those found in local cliffs.

The Ness has preserved the shape of itssuccessive phases of growth, rather like the ringsin a tree. A series of undulating ridges can beseen running diagonally across the open area ofthe Denes, marking the positions of successiveshingle bars thrown up by north-easterly storms.Tough, salt- and drought-resistant plants such asmarram grass, sea kale and sea holly grow in theintervening slacks, while the ridges remain bare.This fragile habitat is one of the reasons theNess is designated as part of the Pakefield toEaston Bavents SSSI.

The Ness is home to Suffolk’s largest regular colonyof breeding little terns, please do not approach anyfenced areas and keep dogs well away.


4 Benacre NessBenacre Ness is mostly now in Kessingland. Look seawardsfrom the village and you will see a wide expanse of shingleridges and sandy ‘denes’. This is the body of the ness, abroad promontory or foreland made of beach sand andgravel jutting into the sea. Strange to say, it is moving.

The shingle ridges of Kessingland Denes.

Benacre Ness on a quiet day. During storm surgesthe beach front may temporarily retreat as muchas 35 m (115 ft).

The Broad itself is a lagoon of brackish waterfringed by woods and reedbeds, and has astrong wilderness feel. It is separated from thesea by a shingle bar, which – like the cliffs – issteadily retreating inland, and gives the Broad itsfragile identity. On occasions this barrier isbreached and sea water floods into the Broad;the water flows out again when the tide falls,turning it into a forlorn expanse of mud. Movingshingle soon restores the breach, and the lagooncan begin to reform. The shingle bar is usuallyroped off during the spring, to encourage speciessuch as ringed plover to breed, and there is asmall public hide overlooking the Broad. The areais part of the Benacre National Nature Reserve.

The cliffs at Benacre are easily-eroded sands andclays of the Norwich Crag Formation, depositedin shallow marine conditions about 1.8 millionyears ago. (For more information see theCovehithe and Easton Bavents pages.)

The area of Benacre Broad was formerly acoastal inlet; it became closed off from the sea

about 300 years ago by the growth of a shinglebarrier. The valley here is underlain by layers offreshwater peat and marine alluvium. Thesebeds extend offshore and they are being erodedas the coast rolls back. This is the origin of thelumps of compacted peat scattered on thebeach, some of which may be several thousandyears old.


5 Benacre BroadBenacre Broad is one of the best places in Britain to seecoastal erosion at work, and also one of the most beautiful.The Broad and nearby cliffs are eroding at a rate of over 3 m(10 ft) per year, but it has been known for 25 m (75 ft) of landto disappear overnight. The effects are dramatically visible atBoathouse Covert and Long Covert, where the trees on thecliff top are undermined with each new storm, and their sea-bleached and sand-blasted remains can be seen on the beach.

Norwich Crag cliffs and fallen birch trees atBoathouse Covert.

Erosion is rolling back the coastline at BenacreBroad. Trees succumb to sand-blasting and seaspray as the shingle bar retreats landwards.

Benacre Broad and blocks of eroded peat left bywashover from a storm.

There was a sheltered inlet of some kind here inthe Middle Ages, with an area called North Hals(‘northern neck of land’), probably referring to anow-vanished spit or promontory. There wasalso evidently a cove (creek) with a hythe(landing place). The size of St Andrew’s churchreminds us of the former wealth and ambitionof its builder.

Covehithe’s crumbling cliffs are a feast ofgeological features; the sediments show anintricate variety of colours, shapes and textures.The best time to see them is in winter andspring, when storms have freshened up theexposures and scoured the beach. The mostgeologically significant strata belong to theNorwich Crag Formation. Pale, blue-grey clayswith rusty mottling form a distinctive platform


6 CovehitheCovehithe is famous for losing land to the sea; it is one ofthe fastest eroding stretches of coastline in Britain. Everyyear it loses another four to six metres of cliff. This processhas been going on for centuries. In the 1780s, the coastlinelay over 1 km (0.6 miles) further east.

Road to nowhere. Visitors may see old wartimedrain pipes, electricity cables and bundles ofbarbed wire eroding out of the cliffs. Recently aconcrete pillbox was swallowed by the sea.

Reconstruction of a local tundra scene during theBaventian cold period.

© Beverly Curl

feature at beach level. These are the remains ofintertidal mudflats about 1.8 million years old,and contain desiccation cracks and fossil wormburrows. Evidence from pollen and marinemicrofossils show that the climate was cold, andthe environment was grassy heathland withsparse tree cover similar to parts of northernScandinavia today. This time period is known asthe Baventian, named after similar deposits atnearby Easton Bavents. Fossil shells may befound in the cliffs or even mingled with modernshells washed up on the beach; they includespecies now only found in Arctic regions.

The main part of the cliff is a complex of sandsand gravels. The lowest layers belong to theWestleton Beds of the Norwich Crag, and weredeposited in offshore sand and pebble banks.Quartz-rich marine sands and gravels of theWroxham Crag Formation are found higher up.Brown glacial clays of the Lowestoft Formationof Anglian age cap the cliff, and were depositedbeneath an ice sheet, perhaps 450,000 yearsago. The sequence illustrates a general coolingof the climate in the early Pleistocene period.Tapering ice wedge casts caused by downward-growing fingers of ground ice can sometimes beseen in the sands and gravels.


Eroding cliffs at Covehithe, April 2006. Clay bedsof Baventian age are exposed on the beach in themiddle distance.

Sands, gravels and clays of the Norwich Cragformation exposed in Covehithe Cliffs. Similardeposits are forming offshore at the present day.

Easton Bavents is one of the most importantsites in Britain for studying the environmentalhistory of the early Pleistocene period, about 1.8million years ago; it is part of the Pakefield toEaston Bavents SSSI. The key strata here belongto the Norwich Crag Formation. Marine sandscontaining fossil shells and mammal bones arefound at beach level or just beneath it, and areoccasionally exposed by winter storms. Blue-greyclays can be seen in the foot of the cliff; thesewere laid down on intertidal mudflats during aperiod named the Baventian. Research hasshown that the landscape of the time was opengrassy heathland with a few hardy trees; theclimate was cold, but not glacial. As at


7 Easton BaventsEaston Bavents cliff is a short walk north along the coastfrom Southwold. As in the nearby parish of Covehithe,the cliffs are rapidly eroding, and buildings on the clifftop may have only a few years before they becomerubble on the beach.

The Norwich Crag, showing a darker horizon ofBaventian clay at the foot of the cliff, overlain bysands and gravels of the Westleton Beds. A massof dumped clay spoil can be seen on the left.

Easton Broad, showing the beach bar reinforcedwith bulldozed shingle, 2006. The eroding cliff atEaston Wood is in the background.

Covehithe, these clays are overlain by sands andgravels of the Westleton Beds and WroxhamCrag, representing offshore sand and pebblebanks similar to those forming along the coasttoday. Brown glacial till deposits of theLowestoft Formation cap the cliff.

Easton Broad lies a short distance up the coast.It is composed of brackish water floored by peatdeposits and separated from the sea by a shinglebar which the Environment Agency artificiallymaintains using bulldozers, so preserving thelagoon. The beach near Easton Wood is the bestplace to see the fossiliferous marine sands at thebase of the Norwich Crag. These date from atemperate climatic period known asthe Antian-Bramertonian – perhapstwo million years ago – andcontain a wealth of fossil molluscanshells and the remains of animalswashed out to sea, including falconer’sdeer, giant beaver, mastodon, robusthorse and southern elephant, all now extinct.


Alachtherium cretsii, an extinct species of walrus.A fossil example of its jawbone has been foundat Easton Bavents cliff

Sand-martins nesting in easily-excavated sandyhorizons in Easton Bavents cliff. A mass ofdumped clay spoil can be seen in the foreground.

An antler of a large, extinct species of deerEucladoceros falconeri.

Credit: Andy Robins, UKGE Ltd

© A. & A. Kennis,www.kenniskennis.com


The town is surrounded by the marshes of theBlyth estuary to the south and Buss Creek to thenorth, and was probably an island in Romantimes when sea levels were higher. Further backin time, someone looking east 10,000 years agowould have seen a broad plain stretching intothe hazy distance, with no sea in sight.Southwold then had a view over Doggerland.

At the height of the last glacial period, theDevensian, an ice sheet reached north Norfolk,sea levels were over 100 m (330 ft) lower thanpresent, and the North Sea basin was a wind-swept tundra landscape larger than the modern

UK. Over the years, fishermen up and down theSuffolk coast have trawled up animal bones andteeth in their nets. Some of these have beenidentified as cold-adapted Devensian species,including woolly mammoth and rhinoceros, wildhorse, steppe bison and musk ox.

As climate warmed up after the Ice Age, sea levelsrose through the Holocene period, graduallyinundating Doggerland. The forested landscape atthe heart of Mesolithic Europe gave way to tidalflats similar to The Wash today, and later to opensea. The Mesolithic population of hunters andgatherers progressively retreated to drier ground.Suffolk’s rivers flowing into Doggerland becameshorter as the shoreline retreated; their coursescan be tracked offshore using geological remotesensing techniques. Investigations have revealedevidence for an early Holocene land surface about5 km (3 miles) off Southwold. Buried tidal flatdeposits here mark an offshore extension of theestuary of the early River Blyth, some 6,500 yearsago. Onshore, borehole samples have shown thatthe bed of this river once flowed 14 m (46 ft)below present day Southwold Harbour.

The offshore submerged course of the earlyHolocene river Stour / Orwell, compiled usingbathymetric and seismic data. Image courtesyRelict Palaeo-landscapes of the Thames EstuaryProject, University of Southampton.

Trawled finds from the bed of the North Sea,including a mammoth tooth (below, centre).Photo courtesy Rachel Bynoe, University ofSouthampton

8 SouthwoldThe seaside resort of Southwold has a grandstand view ofthe North Sea, resting on an upstanding knoll of gravellyNorwich Crag of the Westleton Beds. These marine gravelswere laid down about 1.9 million years ago, and can be seenin old pits near the water tower on Southwold Common.


9 DunwichDunwich today is a small, tranquil village overlooking thesea and a wide expanse of grazing marshes fronted by abarrier beach. In the early Middle Ages it was one of themost important North Sea trading ports.

There was an estuary where Dingle Marshesnow lie, and ships could anchor in the lee of ashingle spit known as Kingsholm. However aseries of storms in the late 13th and early 14thcenturies rearranged the coastal geography,blocking the entrance to the port andprogressively destroying wide areas of the city.

Since then the coast has retreated at an averagerate of 1 m (3.3 ft) per year, although the rate hasslowed up over the last 50 years; shifting offshoresand banks may be part of the explanation.Today, geotextile bolsters and gabions buried inthe beach are helping to stabilise the cliffs and soprotect what is left of Dunwich. A diorama modelat Dunwich Museum graphically explains theerosion story, and the last buttress from the towerof All Saints Church, now vanished, has been re-erected in St James’s churchyard; masonry fromthe lost city can be seen recycled in local walls.Recently, the University of Southampton has usedremote surveying techniques to map the city’sunderwater extent.

Visitors wishing to see remote prehistory shouldvisit the cliffs at Dunwich Heath. Here the flint-rich Westleton Beds of the Norwich CragFormation are dramatically displayed. About 1.8million years ago a complex of sand and gravelbodies were laid down in a wave-dominated,gravelly shoreface environment similar to thepresent day. In places broad, saucer-shapedgravel bodies can be seen cutting intounderlying beds; these are evidence ofunderwater rip channels transporting beachmaterial offshore. The coastline was evidentlynearby at the time. It is also worth a trip inlandto see the Westleton Beds displayed at StHelena’s Pit in Dunwich Forest or in the old pitson Westleton Heath.

An artist’s impression of a map of old Dunwich1587, from a lantern slide by AR Fisk, c.1910. Theold harbour has been blocked by shingle. The reddotted line shows the line of the present coast.

The Westleton Beds at Dunwich Heath cliffs

© Trustees of Dunwich Museum.

Despite these efforts, the low, sandy cliffs northof the village will continue to erode and naturallyprovide sediment for coastal processes - andincidentally fresh information for geologists.

The cliffs contain interesting features. Where notobscured by slumped material, a sequence ofpale and dark yellow banded sands can be seen;these are shallow marine deposits from sometwo million years ago. There is some debateabout the climatic conditions under which theywere laid down. Fossil shells found in this sameunit at nearby Aldringham Common suggest theenvironment was a cool, northerly type,however fossil pollen suggests warmertemperate conditions, with evidence for oak,alder and hornbeam forest onshore.

By contrast, grey and brown clays at the top ofthe cliff were deposited by the Anglian ice sheetabout 450,000 years ago, in cold, glacialconditions. They are underlain by overlain byrusty-brown glacial meltwater gravels forming abroad channel feature which cuts into the Cragbeneath. Intricate looping patterns can be seenin the clay layer, caused by frost disturbance inthe subsoil during the Devensian glacial period,perhaps 16,000 years ago.

Northwards towards Sizewell, the beach extendsoutwards into a broad promontory of shingleridges. This is Thorpe Ness, one of smallest ofthe coastal ness landforms in Suffolk. It maypartly be formed on an offshore reef of CorallineCrag, as lumps of this honey-coloured, fossil-richrock are scattered on the beach, though nooutcrop is locally visible. The beach has beendesignated as part of the Leiston to AldeburghSSSI as an example of vegetated shingle; hornedpoppy, sea spurge and sea kale are growinghere. The beach grades into low cliffs capped bydunes of windblown sand with marram grass.


10 ThorpenessThe picturesque resort village of Thorpeness was developedas Britain’s first purpose built holiday resort in the yearsbefore the First World War. Since then the eroding beachfront and cliffs have been a growing problem, and severaltechniques have been used to try to halt or at least slow therate of erosion.

Thorpeness cliffs looking north, showing palesands of the Norwich Crag beneath orangeoutwash gravels and glacial clays.

Thorpe Ness, showing shingle beach bars backedby sand dunes and a line of low cliffs.

A fossil-rich block of Coralline Crag on the beach.It includes reef-building bryozoans (‘corallines’)after which the rock gets its name.

Five hundred years ago there were as many assix streets lying on the seaward side of the town;these have now disappeared, as has the fishinghamlet of Slaughden a mile to the south. InTudor times, the Moot Hall stood in the middleof a broad Market Place; today it stands close tothe sea front, looking distinctly vulnerable. Infuture, Aldeburgh will have to deal with risingsea levels as well as periodic storms.

Aldeburgh is sited on a low rise, underlain by aridge of economically useful Coralline Crag andNorwich Crag bedrock, once exploited in manylocal quarries; three of them have been designatedas SSSIs for their geological importance. TheCoralline Crag yielded soft, lime-rich sandstoneused for building and making up roads, and theNorwich Crag yielded clays for making thecharacteristic red Aldeburgh bricks. These can beseen in many parts of the town, often framingpanels of flint cobbles from the beach, bothknapped and naturally rounded types.

The River Alde describes a wide meander roundAldeburgh Marshes before turning abruptlysouthwards towards Orford. Standing atSlaughden Quay, the river is separated from thesea by less than 100 m (330 ft) of ground; it isnot difficult to imagine it may once have flowedeastwards. Research has shown that there is a

buried valley here, carved in the Crag bedrocksome 14 m (45ft) below sea level. Its easterlycourse can be traced offshore into the North Seabasin for over 7 km (4 miles), and at Slaughdenit is floored with peat deposits dating backabout 8,500 years, to Mesolithic times. As sealevels rose, the coastline retreated landwards toa position about 1.6 km (1 mile) offshore,perhaps some 3,000 years ago during the laterBronze Age. Under the influence of southerlylongshore drift, a shingle spit then begangrowing across the mouth of the Alde, divertingthe river southwards. This is the origin of the spitof Orford Ness, which has now reached some 16 km (10 miles) long.


Aldeburgh Brick Pit, 1931, showing beds of theChillesford Clay Member (Norwich Crag)exploited for brickearth. Beds of glacial sand andgravel are lying on top.

Storm damage to cottages at Crag Path, 1898.

Coastal defences: the Martello Tower at Slaughdenis protected by rock armour and groynes. Thebeach is regularly recharged by bulldozers.

© British Geological Survey P236203

© British Geological Survey P205645.

11 AldeburghThe cultivated seaside resort of Aldeburgh is a quiet place, except when swept by storms from the North Sea.Despite first appearances, coastal erosion is part of theAldeburgh story.


The whole system is 10 miles (16 km) long, andextends from Aldeburgh as far as Shingle Street.The site has to be visited to be fully appreciated,though aerial photographs convey something ofits strange beauty. Public access is carefullymanaged by the National Trust via ferry accessfrom Orford. The whole site is part of the Alde-Ore SSSI. The site is important for its value for wildlife as well as geodiversity: it is one of the best examples of vegetated shinglehabitat in Europe.

Orford Ness is the largest of the Suffolk nesses.Its origins are linked to a coastal spit whichbegan developing in the Aldeburgh area about7,000 years ago. The spit gradually extendedsouthwards by longshore drift. By the 12thcentury it had reached the port of Orford, and

had reached its present extent by the 18thcentury. The Ness has formed at the point wherethe Suffolk coast changes alignment, fromroughly north/south to north-east/south-west.Instead of rounding the ‘corner’ of the coastlineat this point, the developing spit continuedbuilding southwards, and the result is the capeor promontory we see today.

Extensive saltmarshes (the King’s and LanternMarshes) developed on the landward side of thebarrier; some were reclaimed for grazing land inthe early Middle Ages.

Parallel shingle ridges known as ‘fulls’ marksuccessive growth stages of the Ness. These maybe many hundreds of years old. The circular shapein the foreground is the remains of a 20thcentury military installation.

12 Orford Ness andShingle Street

Orford Ness is one of the most interesting coastal landformsin Britain. It is a complex shingle feature comprising a stormbeach, a ness and a spit, the longest in Europe.

Each ridge marks a single storm event. Thestriped vegetation shows the way that stormwaves breaking on a beach sort shingle. Thesmaller lighter pebbles are thrown into a ridge,and this finer material allows stripes ofvegetation to develop over time. The smallerproportion of coarser, heavier, pebbles arethrown further and accumulate in the troughbehind. This sorting explains why, contrary toexpectations, the vegetation grows on theapparently more exposed ridges. The intimategeomorphology and ecology is very fragile; oncethe pebbles are mixed, by tramping feet orpassing vehicles, the distinctive vegetationpattern and ridge structures are lost for ever.

The southern tip of the Orford spit lies at NorthWeir Point, near Shingle Street, where the RiverAlde estuary meets the sea. The landforms hereare a beautiful illustration of coastal processes atwork. The tip changes shape from year to year,according to variations in the supply of shingleand the effect of storms; sometimes it partlybreaks up. The mouth of the estuary is acomplex of shifting shoals and channels which

are regularly rearranged by the tides. Sedimentalso builds up on the landward side of theestuary, where a small ness at Shingle Street isdeveloping a spit of its own.


The Stony Ditch, a tidal channel drainingreclaimed saltmarshes on the lee side of OrfordNess. The distinctive shapes of Cold War‘pagodas’ can be seen on the horizon, built fortesting explosive detonators.

The spit at Shingle Street ness at low tide,October 2013.


In recent years, the soft coastal sands and clays atEast Lane beach have been rapidly eroding; forexample some 17 m (56 ft) of cliff was lost here in2005. The Tower is standing on a solidly defendedpromontory, while the adjacent beach to thesouth has been left to bear the brunt of North Seastorms. This exposes some interesting geology.

The London Clay is best seen at low tide, wherethe blue-grey, silty clay forms a wave-cutplatform on the foreshore. It was deposited in awarm sea in tropical conditions during theEocene period, about 50 million years ago,when Britain lay much closer to the Equator. Thewater is thought to have been between 200 and500 m (656 and 1640 ft) deep. Pieces of fossilwood can readily be found, presumably washedout to sea from forests and mangrove swampson the Eocene mainland. Diligent searching andsieving will reveal fossil fish, bird and reptilebones and teeth in the clay, and also plantremains including fruits and seeds.

The London Clay also extends up into the cliff,where it is overlain by fossil-rich sands andgravels of the Red Crag. The Crag was depositedon an eroded seabed of London Clay about 2.55million years ago. It contains abundant fossil

shells and occasionally mammal remains such aswhale bones and even rhinoceros teeth. Thereare many brown, phosphate-rich mudstonepebbles; these were known as coprolites, andexploited commercially in Suffolk in the 19thcentury as a source of fertiliser. The grey-brown,sandy deposit at the top of the cliff is a glacialtill, deposited by the Anglian ice sheet about450,000 years ago. At some time during the IceAge the boundary between the Crag and theLondon Clay was distorted into a series ofspectacular undulations, caused by ground-iceactivity in the subsoil. See photo on page 3.

13 East Lane, BawdseyThe tough, cylindrical walls of Bawdsey’s Martello Towerwere built to defend Suffolk against seaborne attack in theNapoleonic Wars. If it were not for hard rock defences onthe beach the Tower would already have fallen into the sea.

The Red Crag basement bed, showing flints andbrown, phosphate-rich mudstone pebbles.

A specimen of fossil wood embedded in LondonClay.

A bay has developed in undefended Red Cragcliffs at Bawdsey.

14 BawdseyThe Deben estuary meets the sea at Bawdsey. Powerfullongshore and estuarine currents come together, and theresult is Bawdsey Bar, a coastal spit which shifts shapeconstantly according to fluctuations in water energy andsediment supply.

The shingle banks are almost entirely flintpebbles, but fragments of mineralised bonesand teeth may sometimes be found in it, alsorare ‘boxstones’. These are pieces of brownsandstone often containing the cast of a fossil ofMiocene age; the best place to see them isprobably Ipswich Museum. As no Miocene bedshave yet been found in Suffolk, the ‘boxstones’probably represent the broken up remnants ofsuch a bed incorporated into the basal strata ofthe Red Crag or Coralline Crag. Dark grey lumpsof London Clay derived from elsewhere on thecoast may also be found; they often containround holes where bored by piddock shells.

Red Crag features in the cliffs east of BawdseyManor. This is the largest exposure of these bedsin Britain, and it has been designated as a SSSI.Rusty coloured, fossil-rich sandstones can beseen in the upper half of the cliff, with theirsurface sculpted by wind, rain and sea spray. Thebeds show a slanting structure known as cross-bedding, indicating they were deposited as

submarine dunes or sand-waves; their sizesuggests a water depth of 20 to 30 m (65 to 98ft), and their orientation suggests a current flowdirection towards the south-west, which issimilar to the Suffolk coast today. The beds weredeposited about 2.55 million years ago.


Bawdsey Bar at low tide, October 2013.

Red Crag cliffs, showing cross-bedding structures.Introduced holm oak, tamarisk and silver ragwortgive the cliffs a Mediterranean aspect.


Sutton Knoll has been researched since the1830s when the pioneering geologist CharlesLyell visited, and it is now a geological SSSI. Thisis a key site for understanding the CorallineCrag. Quarries show a succession of beds, fromshelly, silty sands up into cross-bedded, sandylimestone. Fossil pollen from the upper unitreveals information about local forests, about3.4 million years ago. Our familiar pine, spruce,oak and elm trees were present, but also otherstypical of warmer conditions in the lateCaenozoic era, including hemlock, umbrellapine, sweet gum and wingnut. GeoSuffolk hascreated a small arboretum of species fromPliocene genera on the site.

The Coralline Crag is an isolated outcropsurrounded by Red Crag: it formed an island inthe sea in Red Crag times, some 2.55 millionyears ago. Shelly Red Crag sands and gravels arebanked up against the remains of a degraded

cliff of Coralline Crag resting on London Clay.Fossil shells have been found in their original lifepositions among the boulders at the foot of thecliff. Mussels and barnacles were attached torocks, with clams, whelks and winkles livingbetween them, while piddocks bored into thesoft clay at the cliff base. Thus Sutton Knolloffers a unique opportunity to study aspects ofmarine ecology around a Pliocene island.

15 Sutton KnollRockhall Wood caps the low hill known as Sutton Knoll. Fourold Crag quarries cluster around its flanks, providing geologistswith a window into the late Pliocene Suffolk of around 2 to 3million years ago. Information panels have been erected by theGeoSuffolk group beside the footpath which passes the site.

A Coralline Crag exposure, showing sand martinholes in sandy limestones of the SudbourneMember.

'SuttonaAntiquior’ - anartist’s impressionof the ‘PlioceneIsland’ at Sutton Knoll.

© Roger Dixon; artist Louis Wood.

Natural springs are an important feature here:water percolates down through the sandy Crag until it reaches an underlying layer ofimpervious London Clay and emerges to feedornamental pools and cascades. The iron-richwater had reputed health-giving properties, soFelixstowe gained fame as a fashionable spa inEdwardian times.

The water also tends to make local slopesunstable and prone to landslips, as it lubricates

the upper surface of the London Clay. This can be seen at Fagbury Cliff overlooking theContainer Port, where tree growth has beendisturbed by subsidence.

The Red Crag contributed to the town’sprosperity in the mid Victorian period throughthe brown phosphatic nodules known as‘coprolites’. Ground up, these were used asfertiliser, and prompted a mini ‘gold rush’ inlocal parishes. Interestingly, the nodules contain high levels of uranium, which is whyFelixstowe is the hot-spot for radioactive radongas in Suffolk.


16 FelixstoweThe Edwardian holiday resort of Felixstowe owes much ofits charm to the Red Crag hill on which it stands overlookingthe sea. The seaward side has been steepened by erosionover many centuries to form a cliff-line, used to grand effectby hotels and also the Seafront Gardens, with theirrockeries and terraced paths.

Red Crag outcropping in East Cliff, c.1905, beforethe Seafront Gardens and Spa Pavilion wereconstructed.

Image courtesy Suffolk Coastal District Council.

The London Clay is underlain by the HarwichFormation which contains bands of lime-richcementstone ‘septaria’. Slabs of this rock may be seen washed up on the lower beach north of Cobbold Point. Two centuries ago, it wasextracted from local cliffs and estuary shores andeven dredged up from the seabed as a rawmaterial for making ‘Roman cement’.

Landguard Point is the southernmost tip ofSuffolk, an elongated mass of sand and shinglebanked against a concrete breakwater. It is partof a SSSI designated for the value of itsvegetated shingle habitat. Two hundred yearsago it was an active coastal spit, building outwhere the tidal waters of the Orwell and Stourestuaries met the southward longshore coastalcurrent, with saltmarshes developed in its leeand offshore shingle banks at its tip. Themarshes are now reclaimed and underlieBritain’s biggest container shipping port, whilethe dynamics of the spit have been tamed by the breakwater.


Landguard beach viewed from the breakwater.Studies have shown that sediment movessouthwards down the coast as far as this point, then moves offshore rather thancontinuing across the mouth of HarwichHarbour into Essex.

The Dripping Well, as seen during the heyday ofthe Seafront Gardens in the 1930s.

Photo courtesy Ann Harvey andSuffolk Coastal District Council

AnglianA major glacial period during the middlePleistocene Epoch, about 450,000 years ago.Suffolk was covered by an ice sheet from thenorth-west which extended as far south asHornchurch in Essex. When it retreated it leftbehind thick deposits of till or ‘boulder clay’, andalso beds of outwash sands and gravelsdeposited by meltwater.

Antian-BramertonianA stage (time period) during the earlyPleistocene Epoch, about 2 million years ago.Originally identified as two separate temperateclimatic stages (Antian and Bramertonian) on thebasis of their fossil pollen record, the two arenow considered to represent one single period.Sediments of the Norwich Crag Formation werebeing deposited at this time.

BaventianA stage (time period) during the early PleistoceneEpoch, about 1.85 million years ago. Conditionsin Suffolk were probably similar to parts of theArctic today, with an environment of pine andbirch forest, heathland and peat bog. It is namedafter the deposits in the cliff at Easton Bavents.

Bytham RiverA major river which is thought to have flowednorth-eastwards across Suffolk in earlyPleistocene times, between about 0.85 and 0.5million years ago. Its sediments are characterisedby a distinctive suite of quartz-rich pebblesderived from the Midlands.

BryozoanBryozoa (literally ‘moss animals’) or polyzoa arecolonial filter-feeding invertebrates. They havean encrusting or a branching mode of life. Theyare a notable component of the Coralline Cragbeds of Suffolk, where they represent thevestiges of a bryozoan fauna which was formerlymore widespread before the onset of coolerclimatic conditions in late Pliocene times.

CaenozoicThe Era which follows that of the Mesozoic,including our own Holocene Epoch. It ischaracterised by the dominance of grasses, birdsand mammals.

CoprolitesLiterally, ‘fossilised animal droppings’, this namewas erroneously given in the 19th century to thebrown phosphate-rich nodules found in thelowermost beds of Crag strata in Suffolk. Groundup and spread on the land, they made an effective‘superphosphate’ in the days before artificialfertilisers. The credit for this discovery goes toProfessor John Henslow, from Hitcham in Suffolk,who visited Felixstowe in the 1840s, and saw thepotential of the nodules. The industry had becomeuneconomic by the early 20th century.

Coralline Crag A formation of sandy, fossiliferous, marinelimestones found only in south-east Suffolk. Thename ‘Coralline’ is derived from their notablecontent of bryozoan (polyzoan) fossils, initiallymistaken for corals. These beds were laid downbetween about 4.0 and 3.6 million years ago. Itis thought that sea water temperatures thenwere slightly warmer than today.

CragA traditional name given to the fossil-rich, sandybeds which outcrop in the coastal parts ofSuffolk. A high lime content made thesesediments useful for marling the fields to‘sweeten’ sandy soils, hence the many crag pitsfound in the Suffolk Sandlings. The name hasbeen adopted by geologists to describe asequence of beds of Pliocene and earlyPleistocene age outcropping in East Anglia: theCoralline, Red and Norwich Crags.

Cromer Forest-bedA formation of freshwater and marine sedimentsfound in Suffolk and Norfolk, depositedbetween about 1.7 and 0.5 million years ago.


Glossary

The freshwater deposits have notably yieldedevidence of fossil mammals such as the WestRunton Elephant and the earliest humanoccupation of northern-Europe, as atHappisburgh and Pakefield.

Cross-beddingA sedimentary structure characterised byinclined bedding planes within a generallyhorizontal rock unit, caused by the progressivedeposition of sediment at the front of dune orripple bed forms.

DevensianA stage (time period) of the late PleistoceneEpoch, between about 115,000 and 10,000years ago. It is a predominantly cold periodculminating in a major glaciation about 20,000years ago when ice sheets reached north Norfolk,and Suffolk was part of the tundra zone.

Eocene An Epoch of the early Caenozoic Era betweenabout 56 and 35 million years ago. Due tocontinental drift, Britain lay close to the Equatorand had a tropical climate; the land area whereSuffolk now is lay beneath the sea.

GeodiversityThe natural range (diversity) of geologicalfeatures (rocks, minerals, fossils, structures),geomorphological features (landforms andprocesses) and soil and water features that makeup the landscape. It forms the non-biologicalfoundation for all life, including human.

Harwich FormationA formation of sandy and silty clays and clay-mudstones (‘cementstones’) of early Eocene age,deposited in a tropical sea about 55 million yearsold. It contains layers of volcanic ash, thought tobe derived from volcanoes in the region ofDenmark, of which the most notable is theHarwich Stone Band; this historically providedmaterial for building stone and cement making

in Suffolk. It is difficult to distinguish thisformation from the overlying London ClayFormation; both contain stone bands.

HoloceneAn Epoch of the late Caenozoic Era and theQuaternary Period, between about 10,000 yearsago to the present day. Its beginningcorresponds with the onset of warmingconditions at the end of the last glacial period(the Devensian stage). It is characterised byincreasing human impacts on the Earth’ssystems. There is current debate about whetherwe have now entered a new Epoch, theAnthropocene, characterised by visible impactsof human life in the geological record.

JurassicAn Epoch of the Mesozoic Era between about201 and 145 million years ago, during whichdinosaurs were the dominant group of animalsand the first birds evolved. The area of Suffolkwas on the edge of a land area known as theLondon-Brabant Massif, about 30º north of theEquator (the same latitude as Cairo today).

Kesgrave Formation A formation of sands and gravels outcropping inthe south-eastern part of Suffolk, laid down bythe ancestral River Thames between about 1.7and 0.5 million years ago. Its sediments arecharacterised by a distinctive suite of quartz-richpebbles derived from western Britain.

London Clay FormationA formation of marine clays and clay-mudstones of Eocene age, deposited in tropicalseas about 53 million years ago. The LondonClay outcrops on the coast and along the sidesof valleys in south-east Suffolk. The clays wereused here for brick-making. It is difficult todistinguish this formation from the underlyingHarwich Formation; both contain stone bands,though these are thinner and sparser in theLondon Clay.


Longshore driftThe process by which sediments are movedalong a shoreline by wave action. In generalterms, waves, pushed by the prevailing wind,tend to wash material up a beach at an angle tothe shore, but wash it back down againperpendicularly. The net effect is that each wavemoves some sediment along the beach in azigzag fashion. Over time, or in a major storm,very large amounts of material can be moved.

Lowestoft FormationA suite of glacial tills, silts, sands and gravels ofmiddle Pleistocene age deposited by an ice sheetfrom the north-west during the Anglianglaciation, about 450,000 years ago. It underliesmuch of Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex, notablyforming the ‘boulder clay’ plateau landscape.

MastodonThe popular name for a group of elephant-likeanimals called the Gomphotheres. They haddistinctive mammilated teeth, and either one ortwo pairs of tusks. Mastodon specimens inSuffolk have only been found in the Crags.

MesolithicA period in prehistory spanning the timebetween the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic. Itwas characterised by a mobile human lifestylebased on hunting and gathering, and lasted inSuffolk from about 10,000 to 6,500 years ago.

MioceneAn Epoch of the Caenozoic Era between about23 and 5 million years ago. It is only representedin Suffolk by material reworked into later Cragdeposits.

NeogeneThe second Period in the Caenozoic Era,spanning from the beginning of the Miocene tothe beginning of the Quaternary (23 to 2.5million years ago).

NessThe Saxon term for a promontory, nowincorporated into modern place names.

Norwich CragA formation of marine sands, silts and clays ofearly Pleistocene age, between about 2.4 and1.8 million years old, outcropping in easternSuffolk and Norfolk.

PalaeoceneAn Epoch of the early Caenozoic Era between about 64 and 56 million years ago. Due to continental drift, Britain lay close to the Equator and had a tropical climate; the land area where Suffolk now is lay beneath the sea. The Palaeocene beganwith the mass extinction event whichconcluded the Age of the Dinosaurs. It ended with a Thermal Maximum event,characterised by a hotter planet with unstable climate, possibly related to increasedvolcanic activity which released extra carbondioxide into the atmosphere.

PlioceneAn Epoch in the late Caenozoic Era, betweenabout 5 and 2.5 million years ago. The global average temperature in the mid-Pliocene was 2–3 °C higher than today, and average sea levels were 25 m (82 ft)higher. Later, the tectonic closure of theIsthmus of Panama led to cooler waters in the North Atlantic, while shifts in globalclimate led to the onset of colder conditions in the northern hemisphere.

PleistoceneAn Epoch in the Quaternary Period, betweenabout 2.5 million and 10,000 years ago. Itsending corresponds with the end of the lastglacial period (the Devensian stage). It ischaracterised by cyclical shifts in the Earth’sclimate between cold (glacial) and warm(interglacial) periods, driven by variations inplanetary orbit round the sun.

PyritisationA mineralisation process whereby organicmaterials in wet sediment become replaced by iron pyrites (iron sulphide) through bacterial action.


QuaternaryThe third Period in the Caenozoic Era, spanningfrom the beginning of Pleistocene to the presentday (2.5 million years ago onwards), includingthe Holocene.

Red CragA formation of fossil-rich, marine sands and siltsof late Pliocene and early Pleistocene age,between about 2.9 and 2.5 million years old,outcropping in eastern Suffolk and parts ofEssex and Hertfordshire. It is called ‘red’ after thehigh content of iron oxide in the sediment, andit contains some ironstone layers. It was laiddown as sand banks and intertidal sand flats onthe western edge of the shallowing North Seabasin.

Roman cementA natural cement made by calcining andgrinding a lime-rich clay or mudstone in aprocess patented in 1796. It gave rise to animportant industry in south-east Suffolk until itwas superseded by the Portland cement makingprocess in the early 19th century.

SpitA naturally mobile promontory of material,normally sand and/ or shingle, deposited bylongshore drift, which projects out from aheadland. Orford Ness is a classic example.

TerebratulidsA Class of marine animals with shells belongingto the Phylum Brachiopoda (Lamp Shells).

TillUnsorted, crudely stratified material depositeddirectly by glacial ice; otherwise known as‘boulder clay’.

UnconformityA term used to describe a break in the orderlysequence of strata in the geological record,caused by erosion or non-deposition of sedimentat one time horizon.

Westleton BedsA distinctive suite of coarse, water-rounded, flint-rich gravels and sands of shallow marine origin,belonging to the Norwich Crag Formation andabout 1.9 million years old. They are thought tohave originated as beach-face and high-energytidal channel deposits.

Wroxham Crag A formation of marine sands, silts and clays of earlyPleistocene age found in north-eastern Suffolk andeastern Norfolk, deposited between about 1.7 and0.5 million years ago. It is distinguished from theNorwich Crag by a higher percentage of non-flint,quartz-rich pebbles introduced to the area by theancestral River Thames and Bytham River.


Resources and further reading

You can discover more about the origins anddevelopment of the Suffolk coast online at

www.touchingthetide.org.uk

Dunwich beach after a storm, 19th October 1911,showing building wreckage and the ruins of AllSaint’s church on the cliff top. From a lantern slideby A.R. Fisk.

© Trustees of Dunwich Museum

USEFUL INFORMATION

Ordnance Survey mapsOS Explorer Maps 231 (Southwold & Bungay),212 (Woodbridge & Saxmundham) and 197(Ipswich, Felixstowe & Harwich). Seewww.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/.

Tide TablesAvailable for user-selected locations from the UK Hydrographic Office – seewww.ukho.gov.uk/easytide/EasyTide/SelectPort.aspx

ACCESS DETAILS

Pakefield CliffsTM 537 885 (approx). Accessible from Pakefieldvillage via a walk (about 1 km) along the beach.Visitors to the Holiday Centre may use an accesspoint in the cliffs near the coastguard lookout atLighthouse Gap.

Benacre NessTM 539 860 (approx). Directly accessible on footfrom Kessingland village.

Benacre BroadTM 530 830. Accessible along the beach viapublic footpaths from Benacre, Kessingland, and Covehithe. Visitors may use a bird hidewhich overlooks the south-east corner of the Broad.

CovehitheTM 528 820 (approx). Accessible along thebeach via public footpaths from Benacre andCovehithe. Please park cars carefully alongroadsides, as there are no public car parks.

Easton BaventsTM 514 777 (approx). Car parking north ofSouthwold pier. Charges apply - seewww.southwold.info/local-info.html.

DunwichDunwich village - TM 478 705 (approx). freecar parking near the beach café, and limitedparking in the village. Dunwich Heath - TM 479 677 (approx). carpark managed by the National Trust; chargesapply – seewww.nationaltrust.org.uk/dunwich-heath-and-beach/.

SizewellTM 578 628. Car parking near the beach café;charges apply – seewww.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/yourdistrict/carparks/.

ThorpenessThe Ness TM 477 606. Car parking near the beachand Thorpeness Mere café; charges apply – seewww.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/yourdistrict/carparks/.

AldeburghTM 460 568. Car parking in the town. Chargesapply – see www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/yourdistrict/carparks/.

Orford NessTM 450 490 (approx). Access is managed by theNational Trust only through booked excursionsvia a ferry from Orford Quay. Charges apply –see www.nationaltrust.org.uk/orford-ness/. Limited car parking for the quay is available inQuay Street car park (charges apply) – seehttp://www.orford.org.uk/community/new-orford-town-trust/car-parking/ .

Bawdsey, East BeachTM 356 395. Access by car via East Lane, withfree parking. East Beach may be reached bywalking back up the Lane to a concrete trackleading towards the Martello Tower.


Visitor Information


Suffolk Coast & Heaths AONB

Touching the Tide LandscapePartnership Scheme area

BawdseyBawdsey Bar TM 332 374 and Bawdsey Cliff TM 340 380. Access via footpath from Bawdsey Quay. Free car parking available at the Quay picnic site – seewww.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/yourdistrict/carparks/countryside.

Sutton KnollTM 304 440 (approx). The site is marked ‘Rockhall Wood’ onthe map, and is only accessible via the footpath network.Interpretive panels are sited at the northern end of the site.The closest available car parking is at Shottisham.

FelixstoweSeafront Gardens - TM 303 342. Abundant car parking in town – seewww.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/yourdistrict/carparks/.Landguard Point - TM 283 315. Car parking at Landguard Fort courtesy of English Heritage - see www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/landguard-fort/facilitiesFagbury Cliff - TM 270 347. The site is only accessible via the footpath network.

This book is an introductory guide to the coastal geodiversity of Suffolk,the first of its kind. It focuses on the stretch from Pakefield toFelixstowe, taking in a range of publicly accessible geological featuresand landforms, telling the story of the physical landscape we see today.Many of these places are designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest orCounty Geodiversity Sites. Using this book as a starting point, you cango on to discover them in more detail using the resources andreferences provided. A glossary is provided to give more detail aboutkey words and concepts.

I hope readers will discover some fascinating new places. I also hopethey will come to appreciate the dimension of deep time whichunderlies the world around us: the value of Suffolk’s rocks andsediments as windows into the past and a guide to the future, and thetemporary nature of everything we see. The Suffolk coast is a place forcontemplation as well as exploration.

Tim Holt-Wilson

live

click logos

C