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
Quiet dayWhy: Low tide falls mid-afternoon, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
Safe window: 12:01pm – 3:01pm
Leave the beach by 3:01pm — 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.
20° · overcast · 3mm rain · Low tide: 2:01pm (1.2 m) · Wind up to 23 km/h · Waves 0.4 m
Safe window: 12:44pm – 3:44pm
Leave the beach by 3:44pm — 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.
21° · overcast · Low tide: 2:15am (1.6 m), 2:44pm (1.6 m) · Wind up to 27 km/h · Waves 0.6 m
Safe window: 1:39pm – 4:39pm
Leave the beach by 4:39pm — 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.
19° · mostly clear · 3mm rain · Low tide: 3:04am (1.9 m), 3:39pm (2.0 m) · Wind up to 33 km/h · Waves 0.6 m
Safe window: 2:57pm – 5:57pm
Leave the beach by 5:57pm — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls mid-afternoon, though it is not an especially big one.
19° · clear · Low tide: 4:12am (2.1 m), 4:57pm (2.3 m) · Wind up to 26 km/h · Waves 0.5 m
Safe window: 5:42am – 6:48am
Leave the beach by 6:48am — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls first thing, though it is not an especially big one.
24° · mostly clear · Low tide: 5:48am (2.2 m), 6:38pm (2.5 m) · Wind up to 28 km/h · Waves 0.6 m
Safe window: 5:44am – 8:26am
Leave the beach by 8:26am — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls first thing, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
20° · overcast · Low tide: 7:26am (2.0 m), 8:03pm (2.3 m) · Wind up to 30 km/h · Waves 0.7 m
Safe window: 6:38am – 9:38am
Leave the beach by 9:38am — the tide will cut off your route back.
Why: Low tide falls first thing, though it is not an especially big one. No recent storms, so expect a picked-over beach.
17° · overcast · 8mm rain · Low tide: 8:38am (1.6 m), 9:04pm (2.0 m) · Wind up to 34 km/h · Waves 1.0 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