Earthwatcher's photos with the keyword: Devon

This is Hooken beach, just east of Branscombe, Devon.

River Otter at Budleigh Salterton, Devon This is the River Otter just east of Budleigh Salterton, taken from the pebble spit which nearly blocks the river mouth. The sea is just behind the camera location. There used to be a harbour here but the great storm of 1824 enlarged and extended the pebble spit so as to nearly block the river mouth completely and the harbour fell into disuse. The estuary today is a nature reserve - an extensive area of salt marsh and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Originally uploaded for the Guesswhere UK group. This is a view looking up at the landslide area at the western end of Pinhay Bay, east Devon. The trees are at all sorts of odd angles and some have fallen completely due to the continuing intermittent landslide movements. The top of the landslide scar is seen in this photo: www.ipernity.com/doc/earthwatcher/39024280

Originally uploaded for the Guesswhere UK group. This is located next to the South West Coast Path which runs through the Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliff National Nature Reserve, a conservation area of international importance. This is an area of extensive landslides which have created a jumble of ridges and chasms, now the location of luxurious woodland and special habitats for plants, birds, insects and other animals. The 'undercliff' is the area between the beach and the back landslide scarp face, which may be as much as 700 metres inland. Mostly this is dense woodland, but occasionally there are more open areas where landslides are still intermittently active, where the larger trees have either been uprooted or have not yet had the chance to mature (as is the case here, viewed from the back scarp face of one of the more recent landslides). Just visible on the distant horizon is the Isle of Portland, far across the other side of Lyme Bay.

Charton Bay is a lovely secluded location mid-way between Lyme Regis and Seaton. Access is very limited: a very steep private footpath (involving steps and a ladder) down the cliff from the South West coastal path, or a three mile slog along the beach from either Seaton or Lyme Regis.

The Otter Sandstone (Triassic) is a fluvial sand deposited by an extensive river network flowing through low lying desert conditions. The prominent honeycomb weathering is due primarily to modern wind erosion. Location: West Cliff, Budleigh Salterton, Devon.

The Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds (Triassic). These rocks were deposited in desert conditions by intermittent torrential floods, perhaps in a wadi type of environment. There is a crude depositional dip of about 20° to the east (right) visible just above the grass-covered debris. The main part of the exposure is a generally fining-up sequence with a single sand layer visible in the upper part, which could represent a single flash flood event. Location: West Cliff, Budleigh Salterton, Devon.

Small normal faults in the Triassic age Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds and the overlying Otter Sandstone. The Pebble Beds were deposited in desert conditions by intermittent torrential floods, perhaps in a wadi type of environment. The Otter Sandstone is a fluvial sand deposited by an extensive river network flowing through low lying desert conditions. The prominent honeycomb weathering is due primarily to modern wind erosion. Location: West Cliff, Budleigh Salterton, Devon. A photo of the same location taken when I was a student 40 years ago (scary!) is here: www.ipernity.com/doc/earthwatcher/39022690 Notice how there is much more debris banked up against the cliff now, compared with then.

Beer Roads, Devon A single fishing boat heads into the small bay which serves as a harbour at Beer, at the end of a perfect day. The white Chalk cliffs of Beer contrast beautifully with the red Triassic sandstone cliffs in the distance near Seaton.

The dramatic landslipped towers of Chalk at Hooken Cliff, viewed westwards from Beer Head, Devon. The photo is a panorama compiled from three portrait format shots.

It was a calm, overcast morning with scarcely a ripple on the sea. I was struck by the lines of convergence and the radial sectors of blocks of colour and texture. Photo location just west of Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England.

The beach pebbles at Budleigh Salterton are beautifully coloured, and especially lovely when wet, near the edge of the sea. They are mostly derived from the local eponymous Pebble Beds of Triassic age, although there are some older pebbles from the Devonian and older rocks further west.

This is the River Otter just east of Budleigh Salterton, Devon, taken from the pebble spit which nearly blocks the river mouth. The sea is just to the right of the camera location. There used to be a harbour here but the great storm of 1824 enlarged and extended the pebble spit so as to nearly block the river mouth completely and the harbour fell into disuse. The estuary today is a nature reserve - an extensive area of salt marsh and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Originally uploaded for the Guesswhere UK group. This is the remains of the Allhallows (or Rousdon) water pumping station just east of the Dowlands landslide complex, between Seaton, Devon and Lyme Regis, Dorset. It was steam-driven and used to pump water from the undercliff up to the farms and dwellings on the top of the cliff. This is located next to the South West Coast Path which runs through the Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliff National Nature Reserve, a conservation area of international importance. This is an area of extensive landslides which have created a jumble of ridges and chasms, now the location of luxurious woodland and special habitats for plants, birds, insects and other animals. The 'undercliff' is the area between the beach and the back landslide scarp face, which may be as much as 700 metres inland.

This is located next to the South West Coast Path which runs through the Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliff National Nature Reserve, a conservation area of international importance. This is an area of extensive landslides which have created a jumble of ridges and chasms, now the location of luxurious woodland and special habitats for plants, birds, insects and other animals. The rock in the landslip back scar is the Upper Greensand Formation (Cretaceous).

This is located next to the South West Coast Path which runs through the Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliff National Nature Reserve, a conservation area of international importance. This is an area of extensive landslides which have created a jumble of ridges and chasms, now the location of luxurious woodland and special habitats for plants, birds, insects and other animals. This is a panorama stitched from three photos using Canon's 'PhotoStitch' software.

This lovely, lonely place is Charton Bay on the south-east Devon coast, about midway between Seaton and Lyme Regis. The popular South West Coastal Path passes inland along the undercliff within a few hundred metres of this spot, but there is no public access to the beach here from the path, nor is the bay visible from the path. The only (non-trespassing) way to get here is either by boat or by a 3-mile slog along the beach, either from Lyme Regis or Seaton. As the beach route in either direction involves quite a bit of boulder hopping, this tends to be a very quiet spot. In the 19th and early 20th century there were once private gardens near here in the undercliff, which were planted up with all sorts of exotics. Two of these can be seen in this photo - the Pampas grass and the Holme oak are now unwelcome and very invasive.

Near the start of my walk westwards along the South West Coastal Path, looking back towards Lyme Regis. Golden Cap and Langdon Hill are in the distance; the Cobb peeks out through the trees.