Warden Point provides access to the fossil-rich London Clay coast of the Isle of Sheppey. Small fossils collect in beach shingle and pyrite drifts, while phosphatic nodules can preserve larger animals. Marine fossils and plant remains record an early Eocene sea receiving material from warm-climate forests. Mud, tides and landslips demand a carefully planned visit.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦♦♦♦ – A rich coast with diverse small fossils and nodule-contained remains; finds and safe access depend on erosion, cover, weather and tides.
CHILDREN: ♦♦ – Serious mud, cliff and tidal hazards demand close supervision on a carefully selected firm route; this is not an unrestricted family beach.
ACCESS: ♦♦♦ – Parking approaches lead to the shore, subject to current signs and erosion.
TYPE: – Active London Clay cliffs and foreshore with naturally released fossils in shingle, pyrite and phosphatic nodules.
DIRECTIONS
♦ From the M2 take the A249 onto the Isle of Sheppey. Follow the B2231 towards Eastchurch and Leysdown, using the current signs through the roundabouts and Eastchurch bypass.
♦ The original route turned left shortly before Leysdown onto the road signed “Holiday Village”, continuing to parking at a sharp bend and then walking northwest towards Warden Point. Swale’s parking inventory identifies Cliff Drive, Warden; use a legal signed space and check the current shore approach before setting out.
♦ Follow open established routes to the shore and plan a return that avoids tidal cut-off. Do not descend active slips or assume an old cliff path remains open.
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FOSSIL HUNTING
Warden Point rewards two scales of searching: close inspection of small, heavy beach debris, and careful examination of the surfaces of larger loose nodules. Work on firm, accessible foreshore around the point, watching for concentrations left as the sea washes clay away. A rounded lump is not necessarily fossiliferous. Look for repeated shell curves, a claw edge, a joint or a patch of recognisable bone rather than collecting every unusual stone. The shingle patches higher on the beach and nodule-bearing clay lower down described in the original guide change with erosion and sediment cover.
Crabs and lobsters. Exact-area illustrated finds include the crab Zanthopsis and the lobster Hoploparia, preserved in phosphatic nodules. A crab may first show as part of a broad carapace or claw; a lobster may reveal a row of abdominal segments. Search the whole surface before deciding what is present. Phosphatic burrow casts also occur, but a burrow is evidence of an animal’s activity and need not contain its body. A speculative hammer blow can destroy the very features needed for identification.
Small shells and plant remains. Slow examination with a hand lens is particularly useful in the pyritic debris. Look for recognisable coiling in a snail mould, paired shell outlines, or wood grain and borings. An internal mould records the cavity inside a shell; its surface can lack the ornament that was present on the original exterior. Likewise, a heavy pyritic twig can preserve fine anatomical detail even when it looks like an unpromising metallic pebble. Fruits, seeds and wood are characteristic of this coast, whereas an attractive mineral shape alone is not enough to name a plant.
Teeth and nautiloids. The Warden-area photographic record includes Otodus shark teeth and a worn tooth tentatively identified as Striatolamia. Keep that uncertainty when comparing worn finds. Inspect crown, root and any surviving side cusplets rather than relying on a dark pointed outline. Nautiloids are another documented attraction. Curved chamber walls within a coiled body can reveal a worn specimen, sometimes with pale shell still attached. A rounded nodule without these structures should not be labelled a nautiloid, and no species name should be forced onto an incomplete internal cast.
Rare vertebrates. Fish vertebrae and teeth are more approachable recognition targets than the exceptional skulls and skeletons for which Sheppey is famous. Suspected vertebrae should show organised joint surfaces, not just a rounded shape. Turtle, crocodilian, snake and bird material is scientifically important but not a routine expectation. Palaeophis snake vertebrae have been explicitly recorded at Warden Point; many other old museum records say only “Sheppey” and cannot securely be assigned to this point. Bird remains can be isolated bone ends, while rare associated bones occur in phosphatic nodules. Leave such material supported, photograph it, and seek specialist advice before preparation.
The relationship between a beach find and its original horizon is easily lost here. Slumps bring down and rotate clay, after which waves sort fossils into new concentrations. Record the exact location, date and whether the fossil was loose, in a detached clay block or observed in an exposure; do not infer a numbered bed solely from its position on today’s shore. Small labelled containers and soft padding help protect delicate surfaces. Keep pyritic finds separate for appropriate dry, stable storage rather than assuming mineralised fossils are indestructible.
The original inspection found summer searching useful because the clay was firmer and shingle had accumulated. That is a local observation, not a guarantee of footing or yield. Fresh erosion can expose material in other seasons too, but neither a storm nor a low tide makes mudslides safe to approach. Concentrate on naturally loose material within the permitted collecting area, do not climb slips or excavate the cliffs, and turn back before tide or soft ground compromises the return route.
A chronological record of significant geological research and scientific milestones associated with Warden Point.
1811 – Early turtle reports
Reports of fossil turtles brought Warden Point to palaeontological attention, beginning a long record of work on the vertebrates preserved in its London Clay.
1965 – Landslides mapped systematically
Hutchinson’s survey of the Kent coast distinguished the Warden Point landslide areas K37–K40, subsequently used as reference sections in studies of cliff failure.
1971–1974 – Contrasting major landslides documented
The November 1971 K39 failure and the 1973–1974 K37 failures provided evidence that neighbouring slips could differ in depth, internal distortion and the shape of their basal surfaces.
1971 – Warden Point microfauna documented
Williams recorded 42 foraminiferid species from a series of samples collected at Warden Point, establishing an exact-locality microfossil record alongside the better-known large fossils.
1984 – A detailed bed framework for the north coast
Chris King published the detailed Sheppey coastal succession, correlating fourteen principal London Clay units and their septarian nodule bands through the interrupted exposures.
1984 – Rare land snails described
Richard Preece described two land snails found near Warden Point. These uncommon terrestrial fossils add a land-derived component to the predominantly marine London Clay fauna.
1988 – Instrumented toppling failure
Movement at K38 began around May and continued for about six weeks. Investigation identified forward-rotating clay blocks and translation, demonstrating that Warden’s failures were not exclusively simple rotational slips.
13 January 1989 – A major rotating block at K40
An approximately 150 m length of cliff failed overnight. The back-tilted block descended about 12 m initially, providing a well-documented example of deep-seated rotational movement.
1993 – Warden Point magnetic interval identified
Ali and colleagues identified the upper part of the normal-polarity Shep-2 magnetozone at Warden Point, with its top 8 m below the informal Division C/D junction. This interval was correlated with Chron C24N. This dated research result concerns Warden Point; the separate Shep-3 record discussed in the same account is at Paddy’s Point.
1998 – Protected coast revised
The Sheppey Cliffs and Foreshore SSSI notification was revised, recognising the combined fossil, stratigraphical, landslip and botanical interest of the coast between Minster and Warden.
2000 – A guide to the Minster–Warden fossil fauna
Fred Clouter, Tony Mitchell, David Rayner and Martin Rayner published a collector’s guide specifically covering London Clay fossil animals from the coast between Minster and Warden Point.
2003 – Magnetic signals tested in the nodule bands
A palaeomagnetic study sampled the A–E nodule bands at Warden Point alongside horizons farther west, using the Sheppey succession to investigate an early Eocene magnetic pole for stable western Eurasia.
2012 – North Sheppey coastal-erosion study
A government-funded investigation assessed erosion between Minster and Warden Bay. The work provided a new basis for estimating future cliff retreat along this unprotected coast, with the results presented publicly in 2013.
References
Daley (1999), GCR: Sheppey Cliffs
Benton, Cook and Hooker (2005), GCR: Warden Point
Cooper (2007), GCR: Warden Point mass movements
GCR: Sheppey plant fossils
Sheppey Cliffs and Foreshore SSSI citation
Swale Borough Council: coastal erosion
Early Eocene palaeomagnetism of the London Clay succession
Deposits: SheppeyFossils.com, the genesis of a website
GEOLOGY
Warden Point exposes the London Clay Formation at the eastern end of the north-Sheppey cliff section. These early Eocene marine deposits are mainly silty clay, with sandier intervals and conspicuous concretion horizons. Warden is particularly important for the lower part of the exposed coastal succession: the A–E nodule bands of King’s SH-1 unit are recorded here. This is a specific local starting point for interpreting the shore, rather than assuming that the entire Minster–Warden composite log occurs below one access.
The sediments accumulated on a marine shelf where fine particles settled from suspension. Changes in silt and sand content record changes in the depositional conditions; much of the exposed upper London Clay is assigned to the Sheppey Member in the BGS framework. The fossils combine sea-dwelling organisms with wood, fruits and other remains carried out from land. Burial and mineral growth produced contrasting preservation: phosphate-rich nodules can enclose delicate animal remains, while pyrite preserves many small fossils and plant fragments. These harder objects survive erosion after the surrounding clay has washed away.
At Warden, the shape of the modern exposure is inseparable from landsliding. Waves remove support at the cliff foot, while the properties and water pressures of the clay influence failure. Large masses can rotate backwards and descend, followed by smaller slips and mudflows. Other documented failures have included forward toppling and translation. Lines of concretions that were originally near-horizontal can consequently appear tilted or repeated on the foreshore. They may mark a displaced slab rather than a new bed or the original dip of the undisturbed formation.
This combination of ancient mineralisation and modern sorting explains the collecting pattern: dense pyritic debris and resistant nodules accumulate in patches, but their fossils may have travelled from different heights in the cliff. The numbered SH beds and lettered nodule bands in the detailed account are tools for geological correlation, not labels to assign automatically to loose finds. In particular, nodule band D and the much larger informal Division D are different things.
The chart and expanded log retain the wider coastal succession, including the sandier upper London Clay and the local capping sands historically called the Virginia Water Formation, now mapped by BGS as Bagshot Formation. Those higher units occur elsewhere along the coast and must not be read as a complete stack exposed at Warden Point itself. Their context is useful for understanding Sheppey, while the lower nodule-bearing clay and its repeated landslip exposure give this locality its own character.
Explore the London Clay beds and the wider north-Sheppey coastal succession.
Warden Point exposes the lower part of the north-Sheppey succession, including the A–E nodule bands in SH-1. Higher beds are preserved in the cliffs and along the continuing coast, but the full sequence below is a coastal composite, not a single vertical section at the access point.
The London Clay is early Eocene (Ypresian). Much of the exposed upper formation is assigned by BGS to the Sheppey Member. King’s lettered C, D and E divisions are informal correlation units, not members; SH numbers denote local lithological units, while capital letters A–P identify nodule horizons. A nodule band called D is therefore different from Division D.
THAMES GROUP
London Clay Formation
Sheppey Member
Silty marine mud alternates with sandier and more silty intervals and contains septarian, pyritic and phosphatic concretions. Diffuse sandy-silt interbeds distinguish the Sheppey Member from the more uniform Aveley Member below. The deposits accumulated on a well-oxygenated shelf; grain-size changes record changing water depth and the upper succession becomes shallower-water in character. Gentle north-westerly dip, minor faults and extensive landslipping complicate correlation.
Published coastal composite: oldest beds first
The following bed descriptions retain King’s SH numbering as summarised in the Geological Conservation Review. Thicknesses refer to that composite, not to the thickness visible during a visit. The published table gives inconsistent overall and component totals; its SH-2 thickness is therefore left unresolved rather than silently corrected. The boundary between the Sheppey and Claygate members is not assigned to a particular SH bed here.
SH-0
Very silty clay below the normally visible cliff succession; glauconite occurs towards its base. This lowest unit is known from foreshore exposure.
SH-1 — 6.30 m
Silty clay with five septarian marker bands, A–E. Band D is considered a principal source of the larger phosphatised vertebrates, although most historical beach finds cannot be assigned to a bed. These nodule bands are demonstrably exposed at Warden Point.
SH-2
Sandy clayey silt, becoming rich in small, oval phosphatic nodules towards its top.
SH-3 — c. 2.00 m
Silty clay with small oval phosphatic concretions at its base and the septarian F band centrally.
SH-4 — c. 2.80 m
Sandy clay containing fine glauconite, particularly in the upper part.
SH-5a — Within c. 7.95 m SH-5
The lower silty-clay subdivision of SH-5 begins at the lenticular septarian G band.
SH-5b — Within c. 7.95 m SH-5
A more silty interval with silt pockets and lenses; thin red-brown claystone lenses mark its base. The H nodule band lies at its upper boundary.
SH-5c — Within c. 7.95 m SH-5
Upper silty clay above SH-5b includes septarian band J. Higher nodule horizons in SH-5 are associated with underlying pyritic brown clay.
SH-6 — c. 2.80 m
Sandy clayey silt passing gradually upwards from SH-5. An unevenly spaced lenticular septarian band, K, occurs towards its base; further nodules occur approximately 0.85 m below its top.
SH-7 — c. 3.70 m
Silty clay resting on a sharp lower contact; irregular septarian concretions form band L in the upper part.
SH-8 — c. 1.90 m
Very silty clay with very silty sand in lenses and pockets. Its lower contact is diffuse, while the top is better defined.
SH-9 — c. 2.85 m
Silty clay with tabular septarian band M just above its base. Sandy partings occur higher up and small phosphatic concretions are abundant in its highest 0.8 m.
SH-10 — c. 2.35 m
Sandy clayey silt with a gradational base and occasional lens-shaped septarian concretions near its top.
SH-11a — Within 3.25 m SH-11
Silty clay starts sharply at the conspicuous N septarian band; less regularly distributed nodules occur above.
SH-11b — Within 3.25 m SH-11
The upper part becomes sandy, silty clay containing occasional rounded septarian nodules. Band P is shown in the upper part of SH-11 in the published composite log.
SH-12 basal interval — Within 12.10 m SH-12
The thin basal interval of SH-12 underlies the sandy SH-12b interval. The published summary describes the base of SH-12 as nodular; the composite illustration places the labelled P horizon just below, within upper SH-11.
SH-12b — Within 12.10 m SH-12
A distinctly sandy horizon near the base of the predominantly silty-clay SH-12 succession.
SH-12c — Within 12.10 m SH-12
The thick middle subdivision consists of silty to very silty clay with increasingly conspicuous sandy lenses upwards. Echinoderm fragments are particularly well represented in this interval.
SH-12d — Within 12.10 m SH-12
The upper subdivision of SH-12 continues the silty-clay succession beneath SH-13. It is distinguished in the composite log without a separate thickness in the published summary.
SH-13 — 1.00 m
Silty sand grades into sandy silt. Intense burrowing has removed the original sedimentary structures.
SH-14 — 3.55 m
Silty clay and clayey silt contain discontinuous but distinct silt and sand partings, especially near the bottom and top. The succeeding sand-rich unit has a sharp lithological junction without an erosion surface in the Sheppey account.
Claygate Member
At the top of the London Clay, more distinctly laminated clay, silt and fine sand constitute the Claygate interval. The formal base is the lowest mappable sand bed above the diffusely interbedded Sheppey Member. The Claygate facies and the overlying sandy outlier belong to the upper coastal succession; they should not be assumed to crop out at each collecting spot.
BRACKLESHAM GROUP
Bagshot Formation
The older Sheppey literature calls the sand-rich capping unit the Virginia Water Formation or Lower Bagshot Beds. It occurs locally between East End and Cliff Farm, not continuously along the coast. The published Sheppey section records up to 10 m of cross-stratified fine sand, silt and alternating sand–mud beds, interpreted as a tidally influenced shallow-marine sand body. BGS uses Bagshot Formation for the mapped sandy outliers. Historical and modern boundary concepts are not perfectly interchangeable, so the original name is retained when discussing King’s log.
Superficial cover and landslipped material
Pleistocene cover locally caps the Eocene beds. Slumped clay, rotated blocks and mudflows lie across the original succession and foreshore. Nodule lines in these displaced masses can be tilted and repeated; they are not additional stratigraphical units. Beach shingle and pyrite drifts are modern concentrations of eroded fossils.
Rotational landslips and toppling
Warden Point is an important reference site for the interaction of marine erosion, groundwater pressure and slope failure. Large back-tilted clay blocks are progressively degraded by mudslides and waves. Not every failure has the same geometry: the instrumented K38 failure in 1988 included toppling and translation, whereas the January 1989 K40 slide involved a comparatively intact rotating block. These processes expose fossils but make both cliff edges and undercliffs hazardous.
Lower Terebratulina horizon
The lower of two brachiopod concentrations in the published Sheppey Cliffs succession contains slightly disturbed colonies of Terebratulina wardenensis, providing evidence about the animals’ original life association on the sea floor. GCR15 identifies the horizon but does not provide a secure SH-unit correlation in its prose. It is retained here as a coastal-context fossil horizon, not a separately measured bed or a guaranteed exposure beside this access point.
Upper Terebratulina horizon
The upper concentration is the second distinct horizon to which GCR15 restricts Terebratulina wardenensis in the Sheppey succession. It must remain separate from the lower colony horizon. Neither a thickness nor an SH-unit position is assigned here, and a loose beach specimen cannot distinguish the two horizons.
Historical pteropod interval: SH-9–SH-14
King’s 1984 correlation, summarised in GCR15, assigns units SH-9 to SH-14 to the Spiratella tutelina pteropod zone. This is a fossil-based correlation spanning several lithological units, not an additional bed, member or thickness to add to the coastal column.
Historical ostracod interval: +15 to +51 m
GCR15 reports King’s assignment of the interval from +15 to +51 m above the base of the published Sheppey succession to Keen’s 1978 Echinocythereis reticulatissima Ostracod Zone. These heights use the historical composite datum, not sea level or the ground at a modern access point. This historical biozone is an overlay on the succession rather than a formal lithostratigraphical boundary.
References
King, C. (1984), The stratigraphy of the London Clay Formation and Virginia Water Formation in the coastal sections of the Isle of Sheppey, Tertiary Research 5, 121–160.
Daley (1999), Sheppey Cliffs, GCR 15.
Benton, Cook and Hooker (2005), GCR 32, table 4.4.
BGS Lexicon: Sheppey Member; Claygate Member; Bagshot Formation.
Cooper (2007), Warden Point mass movements, GCR 33.
SAFETY
Check local tide predictions and weather before travelling and plan a route that can be retraced well before the water returns. The tide may reach the cliff foot and close the only safe return route. Do not assume that the distance visible at low water will remain available. Keep a wide clearance from cliffs, slips and overhanging or cracked ground, including vegetated slopes. Saturated clay and mudflows can trap people; avoid soft areas rather than testing how far you can cross them. Heavy mud is dangerous even in wellingtons.
Watch for slippery clay, sharp metal and wreck debris. Wear protective footwear, keep children close on a carefully chosen firm route, and turn back if safe progress is uncertain. Do not handle suspect asbestos or unidentified hazardous debris. Never attempt to climb the cliffs as an escape route. In a coastal emergency call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coastguard.
EQUIPMENT
Bring a hand lens, small rigid boxes, labels, a camera, soft wrapping, sturdy footwear, weather protection, tide information and a charged phone. A long-handled picker can help lift already loose material without bending; it does not authorise digging.
CLEANING AND TREATING
Record the locality and photograph the find before preparation. Remove loose dry dirt gently with a soft brush. Sound phosphatic nodules may tolerate careful freshwater cleaning, but friable clay, shell and pyritised plants need a more cautious approach. Avoid prolonged soaking of an unidentified or fragile specimen. After any appropriate cleaning, dry slowly at room temperature and store specimens individually.
Pyritised seeds, fruits and wood are particularly vulnerable to decay. Keep them dry in well-sealed storage with monitored, regenerated silica gel; watch for powdering, cracks and staining. Isolate a deteriorating specimen and seek conservation advice. Do not routinely varnish fossils or use household acids, bleach, oven heating or chemical treatments. Silicone-oil immersion and ammonia treatment occur in specialist literature but should not be turned into universal home recipes. Important vertebrate or plant material is best left unprepared until assessed; hard nodules may need controlled mechanical preparation under magnification. Use reversible conservation materials such as Paraloid B-72 only where consolidation is actually needed, not as a substitute for humidity control.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
Need help identifying a fossil? Share clear photos, where you found it and its size with the community.
FURTHER READING
Deposits: Seeds from the London Clay
Deposits: The trouble with pyrite
Deposits: Tertiary cephalopods
GCR: Sheppey Cliffs stratigraphy
GCR: Warden Point bed table and vertebrate context
BGS Lexicon: Sheppey Member
GCR: Sheppey plant fossils
Maidstone Museum: fossil conservation
ACCESS RIGHTS
This coast forms part of the Sheppey Cliffs and Foreshore SSSI, protected for its geology, fossils, active landslips and living wildlife. Follow the public access routes and any current signs or closures. Leave the cliffs and in-situ bedrock intact; concentrate on responsible examination of naturally loose beach material, subject to any site-specific permission requirements. SSSI designation does not itself grant public access or collecting permission. Obtain the appropriate landowner and Natural England advice before excavation or removal from an exposure.
It is important to follow our ‘Code of Conduct’ when collecting fossils or visiting any site. Please also read our ‘Terms and Conditions’.
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