4. Kimmeridge Bay to Durdle Door

Kimmeridge Bay, aka Purbeck Marine Wildlife Preserve, is renowned for fossils and is a site of Special Scientific Interest; it is semi-circular in shape with a wave cut platform and rock pools beneath the cliffs. Clavell Tower on the overlooking Hen Cliff was built as both an observatory and a folly.

Next up is Lulworth Cove, one of the world's finest examples of a natural cove; the nearby Stair Hole, an infant cove, shows how it may have looked many thousands of years ago. Lulworth Cove has been shaped as a result of wave diffraction through the narrow, hard Purbeck entrance into the softer clays behind it which are bordered behind by hard greensand and chalk .

We walk on to Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch; the same rock strata as Lulworth Cove have been folded 90 degrees. Wonderful!Read more