Yorkshire · 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 Robin Hood's Bay
FairBig tide today (spring tide) — more beach exposed, but it comes back in fast.
Why: A big 0.7 m low tide falls at lunchtime.
Safe window: 9:34am – 12:34pm
Leave the beach by 12:34pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Big tide today (spring tide) — more beach exposed, but it comes back in fast.
Why: A big 0.7 m low tide falls at lunchtime.
16° · overcast · Low tide: 11:34am (0.7 m), 11:51pm (1.3 m) · Wind up to 15 km/h · Waves 0.8 m
Safe window: 10:22am – 1:22pm
Leave the beach by 1:22pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Big tide today (spring tide) — more beach exposed, but it comes back in fast.
Why: A big 0.6 m low tide falls at lunchtime.
17° · overcast · Low tide: 12:22pm (0.6 m) · Wind up to 14 km/h · Waves 0.5 m
Safe window: 11:07am – 2:07pm
Leave the beach by 2:07pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Big tide today (spring tide) — more beach exposed, but it comes back in fast.
Why: A big 0.6 m low tide falls at lunchtime.
17° · overcast · Low tide: 12:35am (1.3 m), 1:07pm (0.6 m) · Wind up to 27 km/h · Waves 1.1 m
Safe window: 11:52am – 2:52pm
Leave the beach by 2:52pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Big tide today (spring tide) — more beach exposed, but it comes back in fast.
Why: A big 0.7 m low tide falls at lunchtime.
16° · overcast · Low tide: 1:17am (1.3 m), 1:52pm (0.7 m) · Wind up to 28 km/h · Waves 1.7 m
Safe window: 12:37pm – 3:37pm
Leave the beach by 3:37pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls mid-afternoon, though it is not an especially big one.
18° · mostly clear · Low tide: 1:58am (1.5 m), 2:37pm (1.0 m) · Wind up to 27 km/h · Waves 1.8 m
Safe window: 1:22pm – 4:22pm
Leave the beach by 4:22pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls mid-afternoon, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
17° · drizzle · Low tide: 2:41am (1.7 m), 3:22pm (1.3 m) · Wind up to 24 km/h · Waves 1.5 m
Safe window: 2:11pm – 5:11pm
Leave the beach by 5:11pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls mid-afternoon, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
17° · overcast · Low tide: 3:26am (2.0 m), 4:11pm (1.7 m) · Wind up to 20 km/h · Waves 0.9 m
The wide rocky scaurs hold gravel-filled runnels between the rock fingers — that's where the tide concentrates ammonites and belemnites. Work outward from the slipway with the falling tide and start back long before it turns.
Ammonites hide inside rounded grey nodules — a coiled edge showing at the rim is the giveaway (take nodules home to split carefully; never hammer at the cliff). Jet is matt black, feather-light and warm to the touch; sea coal looks similar but heavier and dirtier. Belemnites are amber bullet-shaped rods. Free identification: Whitby Museum welcomes photo enquiries.
This coast is a protected site (SSSI). What does that mean?
Allowed: Collecting loose fossils from the beach is long-established and accepted here.
Never allowed: No digging into the cliffs or hammering in-place rock on this SSSI coast; leave the jet seams alone — commercial jet digging has damaged this coast.
Important finds: Report significant finds to Whitby Museum.
Rules can change — check locally before you collect.
Detailed location guide at UK Fossils →
Car parks at the top of the village; the bank down to the shore is on foot.
Toilets, cafés and pubs in the village; visitor centre.
Slipway onto wide rock ledges (scaurs); hunt the loose material between the ledges.
The wide flat scaurs flood deceptively fast and regularly trap people far from the slipway — start back at least three hours before high water. Very slippery ledges; unstable boulder clay cliffs.
Fossil Forecast