The famous red and white cliffs of Hunstanton are visited by thousands of people each year simply to see this spectacular natural geological feature. The Red Rock and White Lower Chalk are rich in fossils including echinoids, fish, sharks’ teeth, bivalves and brachiopods, ammonites and more. Cretaceous, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Horn Park Quarry was one of the best locations for Inferior Oolite fossils. Today, you can only view the once, productive beds as a small outcrop and collecting is not permitted. Large ammonites were once common here. Jurassic, Disused Quarry, Rating: ♦
This location consists of a series of locations along a designated geological route in Mortimer Forest. You can collect a large number of superb corals, brachiopods, bivalves and trilobites from various cuttings and all the fossils are in superb condition. It is an excellent walk too. Silurian, Cuttings, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
This location is so over collected that you have to crawl into the cutting and it can be hard to get any decent rock samples for splitting, but the rewards are worth the hard work. Superb trilobites and graptolites in excellent condition can be found, and some are complete. Silurian, Stream and Cuttings, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
This is another walk along a designated geological route visiting two stream sections and two further cuttings, including an old railway cutting and a quarry. The rocks here are Silurian, Ordovician and Pre-Cambrian. Shells, graptolites and trilobites can all be found. Silurian, Ordovician, Cuttings, Stream, and Disused Quarry, Rating: ♦♦♦
This is a stream section, which has been cut back into highly fossiliferous Silurian rocks. Plenty of excellent corals can be found, along with brachiopods, bivalves and trilobites. Most of the fossils have been washed out from the rocks and are just lying in the stream. Silurian, Stream, Rating: ♦♦♦
If you fancy a change from all the Shropshire Silurian and Ordovician, you could try this Carboniferous quarry, which is now open to the public as a nature reserve. Search the scree for corals, brachiopods and bivalves. Carboniferous, Disused Quarry, Rating: ♦♦♦
This quarry is overgrown, but still has lots of fossils. Good exposures of the Wenlock Limestone yield a variety of corals, shells and trilobites. It is quite large, with three main sections. Silurian, Disused Quarry, Rating: ♦♦♦
This is a small roadside cutting, which yields brachiopods and trilobites. The fossils here are poorly preserved in soft mud stones and will require treatment quickly, but it is an ideal location to stop off by the road side with a grass lay-by. Silurian, Roadside Cutting, Rating: ♦
Lyme Regis is the most commercial fossil town in the UK, with fossil shops, museums, fossil tours and much, much more – there is no other town like it. The famous beach of Lyme Regis yields large numbers of fossils and people flock here by their thousands to try their luck. The town has a number of fossil shops and includes a museum. There are regular guided fossil collecting tours, showing you where to find fossils and providing general information. The town has had a lot of money spend on making it one of the most beautiful towns in Dorset. Even the lamp posts in Lyme Regis are shaped like ammonites! Jurassic, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦
The glacial pebble beds at Benacre yield a range of derived fossils including echinoids, sponges, shells and belemnites. At the base of the cliff, the Baventian Clay is several metres thick. Erratics (Cretaceous), Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦
During scouring conditions, mammal remains can be found below beach level and bones can also be found washed up after storms. However, Dunwich hasn’t scoured for many years. Pliocene, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦
At Crimplesham, Kimmeridge Clay and Oxford Clay are exposed. Within the Oxford Clay are large nodules, which contain ammonites, brachiopods and bivalves. The quarry is slowly being backfilled, so collecting is becoming more limited. Jurassic, Working Quarry, Rating: ♦♦♦
Llantwit Major is an excellent place in Wales for Jurassic fossils. The huge cliffs yield a wide range of fossils and unique is the large amount of marine life, for example corals and giant brachiopods and gastropods. Jurassic, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦
Doniford Bay yields some superb white ammonites, which can be found in the rocks on the foreshore. There are also a number of well-preserved brachiopods and bivalves. Jurassic, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦
St Audries bay is another location along the Somerset Jurassic coastline providing more wave-cut platforms and cliffs in which to find ammonites and shells. Jurassic, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦
A mixture of Jurassic and Triassic rocks can be seen at Lavernock. Whilst the Jurassic rocks yield ammonites and mollusk’s, the Triassic Rhaetian bone bed similar to Aust yields fish and reptile remains. Jurassic, Triassic, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦
The foreshore at Gileston is full of Jurassic Boulders. Many of these contain shells and ammonites. This is an ideal location for along who likes splitting rocks on the foreshore or families where children can also collect fossils too. Jurassic, Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦
Budleigh Salterton is famous for its pebble beds, which yield large numbers of shells when individual pebbles are split open. This site is an SSSI and also has a local bylaw making removal of the pebbles illegal. You can split the pebbles which are found along the foreshore, to see the shells, but cannot remove them! Ordovician, Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦
