Dorset
Landslides regularly reshape this coast — your route back may not look like the map. Check your return route on the way out.
Today at Lyme Regis — East Cliff / Black Ven
Quiet dayLow tide falls at lunchtime, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
Safe window: 11:25am – 2:25pm
Leave the beach by 2:25pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Low tide falls at lunchtime, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
Low tide: 1:25pm (0.8 m) · Wind up to 26 km/h · Waves 0.6 m
Safe window: 12:10pm – 3:10pm
Leave the beach by 3:10pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Big tide today (spring tide) — more beach exposed, but it comes back in fast.
A big 0.8 m low tide falls mid-afternoon.
Low tide: 2:01am (0.7 m), 2:10pm (0.8 m) · Wind up to 22 km/h · Waves 0.5 m
Safe window: 12:54pm – 3:54pm
Leave the beach by 3:54pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Low tide falls mid-afternoon, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
Low tide: 2:45am (0.7 m), 2:54pm (0.8 m) · Wind up to 17 km/h · Waves 0.3 m
Safe window: 1:39pm – 4:39pm
Leave the beach by 4:39pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Low tide falls mid-afternoon, though it is not an especially big one.
Low tide: 3:29am (0.8 m), 3:39pm (0.9 m) · Wind up to 12 km/h · Waves 0.3 m
Safe window: 4:39am – 5:13am
Leave the beach by 5:13am — the tide will cut off your route back.
Low tide falls first thing, though it is not an especially big one. Daylight cuts the collecting window to under 45 minutes, so don't plan a long session.
Low tide: 4:13am (0.9 m), 4:24pm (1.1 m) · Wind up to 11 km/h · Waves 0.4 m
Safe window: 4:40am – 5:56am
Leave the beach by 5:56am — the tide will cut off your route back.
Low tide falls first thing, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
Low tide: 4:56am (1.0 m), 5:10pm (1.3 m) · Wind up to 9 km/h · Waves 0.3 m
Safe window: 4:41am – 6:40am
Leave the beach by 6:40am — the tide will cut off your route back.
Low tide falls first thing, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
Low tide: 5:40am (1.2 m), 5:56pm (1.5 m) · Wind up to 15 km/h · Waves 0.2 m
Hunt the fresh slip aprons and tideline gravel between Lyme and Charmouth on a falling tide — after rain, Black Ven feeds new material onto the beach almost daily. Keep to the lower beach: everything good washes down to you.
Ammonites show as coiled ridges in grey limestone, or as golden pyrite spirals the size of a coin. Belemnites are smooth amber-brown rods shaped like rifle bullets. Ichthyosaur vertebrae look like dark, shiny cotton reels. Free identification: the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre identifies finds in person and from emailed photos (charmouth.org).
This coast is a protected site (SSSI). What does that mean?
Allowed: Loose fossils from the beach and foreshore are yours to keep — collecting them here is positively encouraged, because the sea destroys what nobody saves.
Never allowed: Never dig or hammer into the cliffs, ledges or landslide material; fossils still in place must stay in place.
Important finds: Register scientifically important finds with the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre under the West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code.
Rules can change — check locally before you collect.
Detailed location guide at UK Fossils →
Charmouth Road car park, Lyme Regis.
All facilities in Lyme Regis town; none on the beach itself.
East along the beach from the seafront, below Church Cliffs towards Black Ven.
This stretch regularly cuts people off — only walk it on a falling tide and turn back early. Black Ven is one of the most active mudslide complexes in Europe: never climb on the slumped mud.