Every summer, people flock to the sand and pebble beaches of Dorset’s Jurassic Coast to relax, play and bask in the warm sunshine. But when the summer is over and the sun worshippers have all gone home for the year, the beaches do not lie empty. Throughout the winter and early spring, you can see figures walking the beaches, studying the pebbles and searching in amongst the rocks. They are looking for the treasures that were deposited on the beaches millions of years ago, the prehistoric fossils for which the Jurassic Coast is now famous around the world.
Hard as it is to imagine now, the South of England was once a tropical environment like the modern Caribbean, and the coastal waters teemed with weird and wonderful creatures of all shapes and sizes. When they died, the remains of these sea creatures were embedded in the soft mud at the bottom and covered in layers of sediment. Over millions of years the mud and sediment was compressed into hard rock and formed cliffs like the ones at Charmouth and Lyme Regis, which are among the most popular spots for fossil hunters on the Jurassic Coast.
Each year, coastal erosion causes the cliffs to give up thousands of new, previously concealed fossils, and deposit them on the surrounding beaches, where they can be picked up loose by eagle-eyed fossil enthusiasts. The catalyst for this erosion is rough weather and stormy seas, meaning that the best time to look is in winter/spring, when the cliffs take a battering from the elements and fresh deposits can be expected regularly.
The Jurassic Coast has capitalised on its fame for amazing fossil finds with a tourist industry geared towards welcoming and assisting visiting fossil hunters. This is immediately evident in Lyme Regis, which boasts numerous fossil shops, information centres, and even streetlights shaped like ammonites!
Visitors to Lyme Regis can also sign up to one of the fantastic fossil hunting walks run by local experts. They take you on a tour of all the fossil hunting hotspots, imparting their great knowledge of fossils and how to find them. These insightful and educational tours are a great introduction to the pleasures of fossil hunting, and should set you in good stead to go out finding and identifying your own prehistoric treasures.
Accommodation is plentiful close to the fossil-rich beaches of Lyme and Charmouth. There are many charming hotels and B&Bs, as well as holiday parks which offer a wide range of accommodation types for short breaks or longer stays.
So if you’re looking for a holiday which is interesting, illuminating and above all exciting, then why not book a fossil hunting break in Dorset at your next opportunity? It’s a perfect family activity, and if you are lucky enough to find one, the experience of pulling a perfectly preserved fossil from the beach, knowing you are the first living thing to have touched it for hundreds of millions of years, is simply unbeatable.
Jackie Ireland is Owner of Newlands Holiday Park.
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Tourist attractions in Dorset
The Jurassic Coast is the name given to an area of 95 miles of UK coastline stretching from Exmouth in Devon to Swanage in Dorset. It was awarded World Heritage Site Status in 2001, in recognition of its iconic natural landmarks and its unique history and geography.
