The shore from Pett Level and Cliff End towards Fairlight Cove records Early Cretaceous rivers and muddy environments. Its Cliff End Bone Bed is important for fish, reptile and rare mammal remains. Fossils may occur in loose material, but unstable cliffs, soft ground and rapid tidal cut-off demand particular care.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦♦ – Bone-bed blocks and other loose material may contain fossils; availability is variable.
CHILDREN: ♦♦♦ – Rocky ground, soft mud and tidal hazards make this a demanding shore for children.
ACCESS: ♦♦♦ – Approach from Pett Level/Cliff End and follow current signs; do not use closed descents.
TYPE: Loose foreshore blocks and weathered material, well away from cliffs and slips.
DIRECTIONS
♦ Approach Pett Level and Cliff End by the coastal road. Use only parking allowed by current signs; do not assume former pub-based arrangements still apply.
♦ The original guide’s entry is Pett Level/Cliff End, continuing west towards Fairlight Cove. Follow open signed public access and check the tide before proceeding.
♦ A walk from Hastings is several miles and is not a substitute short approach or a safe guaranteed return route.
♦ Ref: TQ 88725 12859 – 50.88438°N, 0.68165°E
FOSSIL HUNTING
For this guide, the main collecting ground begins at Pett Level and Cliff End and extends towards Fairlight Cove. The distinctive target is naturally loose material from the Cliff End Bone Bed: a hard, coarse, gritty sandstone containing pebbly particles and small vertebrate remains. It occurs as a discontinuous bed within the Wadhurst Clay, so recognisable blocks may be scarce or absent on a particular visit. Search existing weathered faces before considering any preparation; an ordinary sandstone block is not automatically bone bed.
Use a hand lens to examine the contrast between the mineral grains and darker, smoother fossil surfaces. Teeth may show a shining crown, scales can retain a sharply bounded plate-like outline, and small bones may expose internal structure on a broken edge. The fossils are commonly isolated and rolled, so incomplete specimens are normal. Do not dismiss a block because it lacks an obvious large bone: many of the scientifically useful remains are tiny.
The 2026 Cliff End microvertebrate study gives a firmer basis for identification than the old general label Hybodus. Its studied material is dominated by bony-fish remains, especially teeth of Scheenstia mantelli, with ganoid scales and crushing teeth also represented. Its Scheenstia teeth range from about 0.4 to 10 mm across and often have a rounded, domed crown. Named hybodont genera include Polyacrodus, Egertonodus, Planohybodus and Lonchidion; the study also reports Belonostomus. The paper retains Polyacrodus while acknowledging that its taxonomic status is disputed. Compare the rounded crushing teeth with hybodont crowns bearing a central cusp and smaller side cusplets, sometimes crossed by vertical ridges. Abrasion may remove those details; a worn crown need not be identifiable to genus.
Reptile remains are less prominent than fish in the studied bone-bed material, and mammal teeth are exceptional. The locality’s classic mammal discoveries, including Aegialodon dawsoni, explain its scientific importance but should not be used as a casual collecting checklist. The original guide’s photographs of rolled bone and a block identified as containing crocodile bones and scutes are useful reminders that larger material also occurs. A collection of dark inclusions is not, by itself, proof of crocodile, dinosaur or pterosaur remains.
There is more here than the bone bed. The original field account records shell-bearing blocks and horsetail remains identified as Equisetites. BGS separately documented Neomiodon shell moulds in the Cliff End Sandstone. Look for matching shell outlines on naturally weathered surfaces, and for jointed or longitudinally marked plant impressions. Keep shell-bearing fine sandstone distinct from the coarser bone-bed rock. The older guide’s “Unio Bed” is a historical collecting description, not a reliable name for every grey clay patch; fragile shells or bones in muddy material should be supported rather than pulled free.
Label specimens by the actual finding place and matrix, keeping Cliff End material separate from blocks collected towards Fairlight Cove. Younger woody peat exposed at Pett Level belongs to the submerged forest, not to the Cretaceous plant-bearing rocks. The Rother collecting code limits collecting to a few loose specimens and excludes attacking cliffs or fixed ledges. Preserve possible teeth, associated bones and delicate impressions in their matrix; photograph and report potentially important material before attempting preparation. Do not search the active scree or cliff base for freshly fallen blocks.
Image 1: Rolled dinosaur bone from Fairlight, Hastings.
Image 2: A crocodile block from the Bone Bed, containing some large bones and crocodile scutes.
Image 13: Bone bed with multiple fish, hybodont and pterosaur remains
A chronological record of fossil discoveries and geological research at Fairlight.
1911 – Early Cretaceous mammals reported
The first reported Early Cretaceous mammals came from the Cliff End Bone Bed, following collecting associated with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Félix Pelletier.
1965 – Aegialodon tooth described
Aegialodon dawsoni was described from a distinctive lower molar, contributing to study of the evolution of crushing-and-shearing mammalian teeth.
2026 – Microvertebrates reassessed
Clavo Yamahuchi and colleagues published a wider microvertebrate study, reporting Belonostomus in the Weald sub-basin and another mammalian tooth from Cliff End.
GEOLOGY
At Cliff End, Wadhurst Clay Formation overlies Ashdown Formation within the Wealden Group. The Cliff End Sandstone and Bone Bed are subordinate units in Wadhurst Clay. The historical BGS Plate 5 view at the exact type locality records 10 m of Cliff End Sandstone; that observation is separate from sandstone measurements in other fault blocks.
The Cliff End Bone Bed is a thin, discontinuous concentration of coarse quartz sand, small pebbles, rolled ironstone and vertebrate remains, rather than a thick layer of solid bone. It lies in the shaly interval about 2.9 m above the Cliff End Sandstone. The bed varies in thickness: BGS recorded up to 0.2 m locally, while the 2026 study describes 50–80 mm. Fish teeth, scales and small bones occur within the coarse matrix, whereas plant and bivalve remains also occur in the surrounding finer sediments.
Farther towards Fairlight Cove, the Ashdown rocks show how the depositional conditions changed laterally. Sandy and silty layers alternate with muddier beds, lignitic plant-rich seams and iron-rich sediment. The 2.4 m sandstone marker X contains branching vertical traces picked out by siderite and becomes plant-rich near its base. Haddock’s Rough cuts into this older succession: its sand, silt and mud build an accreting channel fill, locally up to 10 m thick, with plant debris and mud flakes near the base. That channel geometry explains why a layer cannot be followed as an unbroken, equal-thickness band along the whole coast.
Beach cover interrupts the exposed succession between Fairlight Cove and Haddock’s Reversed Fault, so the concealed connection cannot be measured as a continuous section.
“Fairlight Clays” describes historical clay-rich Ashdown facies, not an extra formation or formal member. The reverse-fault throws are displacement measurements, distinct from bed thickness. Younger head deposits and slipped material also remain separate from the bedrock succession. Pett Level’s much younger submerged forest contains tree boles and trunks in woody peat over blue-grey clay; the BGS memoir traces it towards Haddock’s Reversed Fault. It is separate from the Cretaceous fossil-bearing rocks.
Detailed geology and stratigraphy of Fairlight.
This section starts at Pett Level/Cliff End (TQ 88725 12859) and follows the shore towards Fairlight Cove. The two reverse faults, the Cliff End bone-bed section and the intervening Ashdown channel deposits are separate geological panels.
WEALDEN GROUP
The modern BGS framework places these formations in the Wealden Group. Older publications use “Hastings Beds”, “Hastings Group” or “Wealden Supergroup”; these are historical classification schemes rather than extra units in the succession.
Wadhurst Clay Formation
Early Cretaceous, Valanginian. Cliff End north-east of Haddock’s Reversed Fault.
Cliff End Bone Bed — Up to 0.2 m thick; about 2.9 m above the Cliff End Sandstone. A lenticular, coarse quartz-rich sandstone with calcareous cement, siliceous pebbles and rolled clay-ironstone nodules. Teeth, scales and small bones occur. Its type locality is TQ 887 129; it can be absent laterally.
Bone-bed host shales — Different local observations, not one uniform thickness. Soft shale with subordinate siltstone, ironstone nodules and local fish, plant and bivalve remains. The c.16 m record at TQ 885 125 is a separate cliff-top exposure where the bone bed was absent.
Cliff End Sandstone — The historical BGS Plate 5 type-locality view at TQ 887 129 records 10 m of sandstone. A conspicuous sandstone below the bone-bed shales; its base falls towards beach level near the Cliff End Fault.
Basal shale and ironstone — Shale interval about 1 m, upper ironstone 0.1 m. A shale interval below the sandstone has a thin clay-ironstone bed at its top.
Ashdown Formation
Early Cretaceous, late Berriasian–early Valanginian. Between Fairlight Cove Reversed Fault (TQ 8806 1197) and Haddock’s Reversed Fault (TQ 8857 1251), the following top-down composite has substantial lateral variability and erosional contacts.
Haddock’s Rough Unit — Up to 10 m. A laterally accreted channel-fill package of sandy, silty and muddy foresets, with plant debris and a basal mud-flake concentration. Its erosional base cuts across underlying layers; it is not simply the next flat bed everywhere.
Grey silt and silty mudstone — 1.1 m. Fine-grained interval.
Pale fine sandstone — 2 m. Contains a dark shale band.
Iron-stained silt and silty mudstone — 3.7 m. Iron-pan marks joints.
Sphaerosideritic silty mudstone — 1.7 m. Includes 0.6 m of fine pale sandstone at its top.
Fine grey-buff sandstone — 1.8 m. Sideritic patches and oblique iron-pan joints.
Massive grey silt — 2.9 m. Basal lignitic material is overlain by thin sideritic clay.
Grey silt with basal clay — 1.5 m. Iron-pan joints; thin sphaerosideritic clay at base.
Ochreous fine sandstone — 0.1 m. Thin sandstone layer.
Silty mudstone — 1.8 m. Becomes siltier upwards.
Massive buff silty sandstone — 2.4 m. Sideritic top, a lignitic band above the base and plant-rich basal sediment.
Sphaerosideritic mudstone — 1.3 m. Grey silty sediment.
Sandstone marker X — 2.4 m. Yellow-buff silty sandstone with branching vertical traces outlined by siderite, becoming plant-rich towards its base. The channel-fill cuts this marker locally.
Variable cross-stratified interval — 2.4 m overall. Plant-rich, sideritic clay/silt contains pebbly coarse-sand lenses up to 1 m thick.
Hard grey siltstone — 0.4 m. Competent thin layer.
Grey silty clay — 0.2 m. Fine interbed.
Sideritic silty sandstone — 0.9 m. Iron-pan on joints.
Pale silty clay — 0.5 m. Fine interbed.
Fine-to-medium sandstone — Seen to 1.4 m. Basal lenses of coarser pebbly sand; only the upper exposed portion was measured.
Beach-covered gap and foreshore cross-beds — Unmeasured. Beach material conceals the connection to plant-bearing sand/silt cross-beds in the platform. No thickness or forced correlation is supplied.
Beneath the Wadhurst basal notch near Cliff End, up to 15 m of Ashdown sandstone with thin muddy intervals is exposed above the beach. This is a different structural block from the detailed Haddock’s Rough composite.
“Fairlight Clays” is an historical description of clay-rich facies within Ashdown, rather than a separate formation or formal member. The two reverse faults have estimated throws around 55–60 m; those figures are displacement, not formation thickness.
The bone bed’s classic mammals include Loxaulax valdensis, Spalacotherium cf. tricuspidens, Melanodon hodsoni and Aegialodon dawsoni in the GCR treatment. The identification of Spalacotherium is tentative. The GCR uses the historical combination Melanodon hodsoni.
The June 2026 microvertebrate paper reports the first Belonostomus record in the Weald sub-basin and a new mammalian tooth. The reported Belonostomus occurrence is identified to genus in the published abstract.
The Cliff End Bone Bed is distinct from younger head deposits and modern slipped material at the coast.
References
SAFETY
Check tide times and leave ample time to return. Rother’s Pett Level advice warns of fast incoming tides, tidal cut-off, soft mud and rocks; this is an unsupervised shore.
Remain well clear of cliff bases, slips and groynes. Never climb barriers or use historical descriptions of fault re-entrants as access directions. A hard hat does not make collecting beneath an unstable cliff safe.
EQUIPMENT
Take sturdy footwear with good grip, tide information, a hand lens, a camera, wrapping material and rigid specimen boxes. Keep the load manageable for the rocky shore.
A hand lens helps distinguish small teeth, scales, shell fragments and plant material. Do not bring digging tools for excavating in-situ beds; leave important tracks and large remains in place for recording.
CLEANING AND TREATING
Pack fragile clay-hosted remains separately and allow them to dry slowly. Begin with a soft dry brush only when the matrix is stable; do not soak flaky mudstone, bone or plant-rich material.
Hard sandstone, ironstone and bone-bed matrix can break through a fossil rather than around it. Avoid indiscriminate splitting, acids, bleach and routine coatings. Keep potentially important bones, teeth and associated remains unprepared and seek specialist advice.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
Need help identifying a fossil? Share clear photos, where you found it and its size with the community.
FURTHER READING
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 to 1955): A geologist-priest in Hastings
Lake and Shephard-Thorn (1987), Geology of the country around Hastings and Dungeness
Hopson, Wilkinson and Woods (2008), A stratigraphical framework for the Lower Cretaceous of England, BGS RR/08/03
Rother District Council: Winchelsea and Pett Level beaches
Clavo Yamahuchi and colleagues (2026), Microvertebrates from the Cliff End Bone Bed (Wealden, Lower Cretaceous), East Sussex, UK The University of Bristol record provides the abstract and publication details.
ACCESS RIGHTS
The coast has protected geological interest. Follow current signs and collecting guidance, leave in-situ beds intact and avoid excavating cliffs or slip slopes. Check current Rother District Council beach information before travelling; do not infer private parking permission from old guide text.
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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