CHESIL BEACH

'Chesil Beach', sometimes called 'Chesil Bank', is a tombolo in Dorset, southern England. The shingle beach is long, wide and high. It is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

Contents

Description

The Fleet Lagoon

Origin

Literary reference

See also

Photographs

External links

Description

The tombolo of Chesil Beach connects the Isle of Portland, a limestone island in the English channel to Abbotsbury, though it continues westwards to West Bay near Bridport. It is the largest tombolo in the United Kingdom and it forms a large lagoon (the Fleet) on its shoreward side. The beach is steep, showing a clear storm beach. Pebbles on the beach are graded, with potato-sized stones at Portland and pea-sized grains at West Bay. Fishermen familiar with the beach claim to be able to tell their location from pebble size alone. The pebbles are mainly flint and chert from the Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks which make up this stretch of the Heritage Coast, along with bunter pebbles, possibly from Budleigh Salterton, although no universally accepted geological theory has been formulated to explain the mode of transport. Chesil Beach is known locally as Chesil Bank.
At the Isle of Portland end of the beach, the beach curves round sharply to form Chesil Cove. This part of the beach protects the low lying village of Chiswell from flooding.
The beach provides shelter from the prevailing winds and waves for the town of Weymouth and the village of Chiswell, which otherwise would probably not exist.

The Fleet Lagoon

From West Bay to Cliff End the beach is piled up against the cliff. At Cliff End a hollow forms behind the beach and at Abbotsbury a stretch of muddy saline (or brackish) water called the Fleet (a lagoon) begins. The Fleet is home to many wading birds and Abbotsbury Swannery, and fossils can be found in the sand.
Because of the low population density of nearby areas and their proximity to the naval base on Portland, the beach and the Fleet were used for machine gun training and bouncing bomb testing (for Operation Chastise) in World War II.
Both Chesil Beach and the Fleet Lagoon are a Site of Special Scientific Interest, whilst the view of the beach from Abbotsbury has been voted by ''Country Life'' magazine as Britain's third best view.

Origin

The origin of the beach has been argued over for some time, originally believed to be from the Budleigh Salterton pebble beds to the west and later from Portland to the south east. The differences between the pebbles on the beach and nearby sources is now put down to the Flandrian isostatic sea level rise so the feature could also be considered a barrier beach or bar that happens to connect the mainland to an island rather than a 'true' tombolo that is created due to the effects of the island on waves (through refraction) and to sediment transport. This usually produces a beach perpendicular to the mainland rather than parallel to it.

Literary reference

Chesil Beach provides the setting and title of Ian McEwan's 2007 novella ''On Chesil Beach''.

See also

★ List of Dorset beaches

★ Jurassic Coast

Photographs

★ Weymouth Pictures - Chesil & Portland

★ Chesil Beach Photographs

★ South West Coast Path - showing shingle grading

★ A 360 degree 'virtual reality' panorama of Chesil Beach

External links

★ Website for Chesil Beach and a number of associated organisations

★ Chesil Beach Group on Flickr - Lots of Photos

★ Southampton University - Lots of info and Photos

★ Denver University - Overview

★ Fleet Study Group

★ Chesil Beach & The Fleet Special Protection Area

★ The Fleet Observer - A Local Charity site providing information on the area

★ West Bay - The western end of Chesil Beach

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