Dorset · Directions ↗
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 dayWhy: Low tide falls towards evening, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
Safe window: 4:39pm – 6:47pm
Leave the beach by 6:47pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls towards evening, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
12° · rain · 7mm rain · Low tide: 5:36am (1.9 m), 6:39pm (1.9 m) · Wind up to 19 km/h · Waves 0.9 m
Safe window: 6:31pm – 6:45pm
Leave the beach by 6:45pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls towards evening, though it is not an especially big one. Daylight cuts the collecting window to under 45 minutes, so don't plan a long session. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
14° · overcast · 13mm rain · Low tide: 6:57am (2.1 m), 8:31pm (2.0 m) · Wind up to 26 km/h · Waves 0.9 m
No safe daylight window
Why: Winds gusting around 76 km/h forecast — not a day to be under cliffs.
14° · overcast · 12mm rain · Low tide: 8:55am (2.1 m), 10:08pm (1.8 m) · Wind up to 42 km/h · Waves 1.4 m
No safe daylight window
Why: Winds gusting around 74 km/h forecast — not a day to be under cliffs.
14° · overcast · 23mm rain · Low tide: 10:17am (1.9 m), 10:55pm (1.5 m) · Wind up to 39 km/h · Waves 1.6 m
No safe daylight window
Why: Winds gusting around 108 km/h forecast — not a day to be under cliffs.
13° · mostly clear · 7mm rain · Low tide: 11:05am (1.5 m), 11:30pm (1.2 m) · Wind up to 61 km/h · Waves 1.7 m
Safe window: 9:43am – 12:43pm
Leave the beach by 12:43pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: A recent westerly blow should have brought fresh cliff material onto the beach. An early-autumn blow like this restocks beaches after the quiet summer. Low tide falls at lunchtime, though it is not an especially big one.
16° · drizzle · 16mm rain · Low tide: 11:43am (1.2 m) · Wind up to 29 km/h · Waves 1.1 m
Safe window: 9:19am – 12:19pm
Leave the beach by 12:19pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: A recent westerly blow should have brought fresh cliff material onto the beach. An early-autumn blow like this restocks beaches after the quiet summer. Low tide falls at lunchtime, though it is not an especially big one.
16° · mostly clear · 2mm rain · Low tide: 12:03am (0.9 m), 11:19am (0.9 m), 11:36pm (0.7 m) · Wind up to 33 km/h · Waves 1.0 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.
Fossil Forecast