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Chesil Beach
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chesil Beach (sometimes called Chesil Bank) is an 18 mile (29km) long, 200 metre wide and 18 metre high shingle tombolo in Dorset, southern England. The beach is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. This tombolo 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 the coarser stones nearer to Portland. 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.
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 so sediment transport. This usually produces a beach perpendicular to the mainland rather than parallel to it.
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.
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.
Chesil Beach is referred to in title of Ian McEwan's 2007 novella "On Chesil Beach".
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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.