The sandy cliffs west of Reculver expose a different fossil world from the clay shores farther towards Herne Bay. This locality is especially rewarding for collectors interested in fragile bivalves from the Thanet Formation, with shell-rich beds and concretions appearing on the foreshore as conditions change. Tide planning and careful support of delicate specimens are essential.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦♦ – Bivalves are the main interest. Shark teeth occur but are much less characteristic than at nearby Beltinge.
CHILDREN: ♦♦♦♦ – Supervised visits require a safe tidal return and a wide distance from unstable sandy cliffs.
ACCESS: ♦♦♦♦ – Approach from Reculver’s car parks and promenade, using the currently open signed beach access.
TYPE: – Sandy cliff and foreshore exposures, loose shell-bearing matrix and cemented blocks. Do not dig into standing faces.
DIRECTIONS
♦ From the A299 east of the Beltinge exit, follow signs for Reculver and Hillborough. The original approach passes beneath the road bridge, turns immediately left and then right at the next junction towards Reculver.
♦ Continue to Reculver. Council records identify Reculver Country Park and Reculver Towers car parks; follow current parking and payment signs.
♦ Walk along the promenade towards the cliffs. Its end is not a direct beach exit: use the signed steps and path behind the seawall, then the established beach access only where it is currently open.
♦ The original route used a slipway through the end of the cliff. Follow current signs and do not improvise a descent if that access is closed or unsafe.
♦ Original locality reference: 51.37863°N, 1.19135°E.
FOSSIL HUNTING
Reculver is principally a shell-collecting locality. Start with naturally released, shell-bearing material on the foreshore west of the Towers, keeping a safe distance from the sandy cliffs. Search the surfaces of damp, loose blocks for paired curved outlines and pale shell edges before attempting to lift anything. A conspicuous shell band does not mean its fossils are robust: the original field account found damp foreshore matrix more supportive than the dry, crumbling cliff sand. Carry a promising specimen within a small surrounding block in a rigid box rather than pulling it out by the shell.
The characteristic bivalves. Arctica morrisi is repeatedly documented in the Reculver coast section, both as scattered shells and in concentrations. Complete paired valves are especially informative, but rounded outlines alone cannot establish the species: retain the beak, hinge area and growth lines wherever they survive. Older Reculver descriptions also record Pholadomya konincki, already described as rare in the BGS memoir. They used the name Thracia oblata for another bivalve, but BGS distinguishes the Thanet form as an undescribed species; true Thracia oblata was described from the London Clay at Bognor Regis. These historical records need that qualification and do not promise the same finds on every visit. Some apparent “shells” are internal moulds left after the original shell dissolved, so check whether the exposed surface is shell or a cast of its interior.
Relating a find to its bed. The eastern part of Ward’s coastal succession includes the Eutylus cuneatus Bed (Unit A) and the Reculver Tabular Band (Unit B). Fossils in A include articulated bivalves, while B is a conspicuous, locally calcite-cemented marker. Ward did not record an indigenous mollusc assemblage within B itself: a shell adhering to a tabular block may belong to an adjoining bed. This distinction matters when labelling a specimen and helps explain why a large hard block can be less rewarding than a small piece of shell-bearing silty matrix.
Farther west, at and towards Bishopstone, the documented coastal framework includes the Arctica morrisi Bed (C), the Panopea remensis Bed (D) and the Astarte tenera Bed (E). Still higher, units F and G include small Corbula regulbiensis, sometimes in silicified concentrations. These are useful comparisons for a properly recorded westward traverse, not a list of beds all exposed below the Towers. Small shells packed together, scattered larger paired valves and a hard cluster of shell casts are different preservation styles: record the matrix and association as carefully as the name.
Wood, mineralised material and teeth. Wood can preserve borings, and some horizons contain pyrite around shells or plant fragments. A branching or spiky pyrite mass is not automatically a plant fossil; look for genuine grain, bark or a repeated anatomical pattern. Calcite-cemented tabular blocks, silicified shell concentrations and ordinary silty shell beds need different preparation. Keep fragile or pyritic material separate and avoid applying one washing or hardening treatment to every find.
Shark teeth occur but are uncommon compared with the bivalves. The productive Beltinge Fish Bed farther west is a separate collecting target and does not establish an equivalent yield at Reculver. Any loose tooth or shell may have moved along the shore: record it as a beach find unless its original bed was actually observed. Small quantities of well-supported shells, with photographs and a precise locality, are more useful than a bag of detached, crumbling fragments. Keep to permitted loose material and do not excavate the standing cliffs.
Image 7: Shark tooth from Reculver, Herne Bay.
Image 8: Bivalves are the most common find at Reculver.
A chronological record of fossil discoveries, geological research and conservation milestones associated with Reculver.
1850–1854 – Early succession described
Joseph Prestwich’s work established the main early Palaeogene divisions in the Herne Bay–Reculver section and documented its fossils, providing the basis for later stratigraphic revision.
1866–1872 – Oldhaven beds distinguished and section refined
William Whitaker separated the Oldhaven Beds from the older concept of the London Clay basement and published a more detailed cliff section. These changes explain several names still encountered in older collections.
1883 – Thanet beds investigated in greater detail
J. S. Gardner added descriptions of the Thanet succession and questioned the placement of its upper boundary, helping establish that shell assemblages alone could not justify the older division.
1972 – A chimaeroid described from the upper Thanet beds
Callorhynchus newtoni was described from the Astarte tenera interval of the Herne Bay–Reculver succession, a rare vertebrate contribution to a section better known for molluscs.
1978 – Bed-by-bed foreshore framework published
David Ward’s measured account and 1976 foreshore map established the A–P scheme and named the Reculver Tabular Band and several mollusc-rich horizons. It remains essential for distinguishing the eastern Thanet beds from younger exposures farther west.
1981 – Thanetian reference section recognised
The Herne Bay–Reculver section was selected with Pegwell Bay as a historical co-stratotype for the Thanetian, emphasising the international value of its Palaeocene marine succession. Later international boundary definitions should not be confused with this historical selection.
1987 – Microfossil correlations refined
Siesser, Ward and Lord used calcareous nannofossils to refine the correlation and age interpretation of the Thanet succession, adding independent evidence to the long-established mollusc and lithological divisions.
References
Ward 1978, Lower London Tertiary succession of Herne Bay, IGS Report 78/10, public facsimile
BGS Lexicon: Reculver Sand Member
Daley and Balson 1999, London Basin eastern localities, GCR15
GEOLOGY
The Reculver end of this coast exposes the upper Thanet Formation, deposited in a late Palaeocene sea. Its fine sands, silts and clay-rich intervals are more varied than the traditional name “Thanet Sands” suggests. The Reculver Sand Member is the BGS name for this part of the succession. It does not represent the whole formation, and the older beds down to the Chalk are not displayed as a continuous cliff section here.
Shells preserve both the sea-floor community and its disturbance. Articulated valves in life position contrast with crowded drifts of transported shells, while wood introduces material from land. Different beds therefore contain different combinations of fossils rather than one uniform beach fauna. Original shells may remain within damp foreshore sediment but be dissolved or weakened in weathered cliff material. This accounts for some of the contrast between apparently fossil-rich sand and specimens that collapse as soon as they are disturbed.
Hard bands owe their resistance to cement formed within the sediment. The Reculver Tabular Band is locally bound by calcite and breaks into broad blocks as the softer surrounding sediment erodes. Higher silicified shell concentrations represent a different kind of mineralisation and should not be treated as equivalent rock. Small faults and changing dip also affect the position of the tabular band, so repeated blocks or outcrops on the shore are not necessarily additional beds.
The coast provides a lateral traverse through the succession, rather than the complete column below one access point. Ward’s units A–I describe the upper Thanet beds across the broader Reculver–Bishopstone section; several of the named fossil horizons are at or west of Bishopstone. Younger Upnor, Harwich and London Clay deposits become important farther west towards Beltinge. The detailed log and its charts preserve that wider context, including the separate westward units J–P, without transferring their fish beds or full formation thicknesses to the shore immediately beside Reculver.
Detailed geology and stratigraphy of Reculver.
Mapped scope of the succession
Ward’s Units A–I describe the wider Herne Bay–Reculver coastal succession, not a continuous exposure immediately below Reculver Towers. His individual references place Unit C at TR 207 688, E at TR 2051 6881, F at TR 2048 6880 and G at TR 2046 6875, at or west of Bishopstone. The bed descriptions below therefore provide coastal geological context; they do not imply that every bed can be visited from the Towers without a substantial westward traverse or that Beltinge collecting conditions apply at Reculver.
MONTROSE GROUP
The oldest exposed beds of this coastal section are Palaeocene marine deposits. The Reculver-end shore is especially important for the upper Thanet succession; younger beds become more prominent westwards towards Bishopstone.
Thanet Formation
The eastern cliffs and foreshore show the upper part of the formation, not its complete thickness or its basal contact with Chalk. Ward’s section contains about 17.5 m in Units A–I, but individual foreshore-bed thicknesses were explicitly approximate. Shells may be leached out of cliff faces while remaining better preserved in the foreshore.
Reculver Sand Member
BGS uses Reculver Sand Member for the fine sands, silts and clay-rich beds traditionally called Reculver Silts. Later proposed nomenclature separates a Faversham Member for Ward’s E–I; that is an alternative subdivision of these same beds, not another package stacked above them.
Unit A — Eutylus cuneatus Bed (about 7.75 m)
Stiff grey silty clay contains Eutylus cuneatus, often in life position, especially low in the bed. Arctica morrisi occurs scattered and in compressed shell drifts. Other bivalves and fish remains are less frequent. Discontinuous stone bands lie within the uppermost approximately 2 m; that figure describes their position, not extra thickness.
Unit B — Reculver Tabular Band (about 0.20 m)
Light-grey silty sand is locally calcite-cemented into broad tabular nodules. Cemented pieces form conspicuous foreshore blocks; uncemented parts weather to a notch. Burrows from its base penetrate the underlying silt. Shells on block surfaces may derive from adjoining beds: Ward recorded no indigenous mollusc assemblage within the cemented band itself.
Unit C — Arctica morrisi Bed (about 2.10 m)
Grey silty clay contains abundant Arctica morrisi, both in crowded drifts and as articulated individuals in life position. Nucula, Corbula regulbiensis and occasional oysters occur. Near the top is a pyrite-filled mollusc horizon. Driftwood is commonly teredinid-bored, sometimes silicified and generally little abraded.
Unit D — Panopea remensis Bed (about 3.20 m)
Grey-green silty clay carries a more varied, mostly scattered molluscan fauna than C. Oysters attached to wood occur particularly low in the unit. Panopea remensis, Cyrtodaria rutupiensis and gastropods are especially associated with its upper part. A conspicuous mid-bed interval of irregular spiky pyrite concretions can enclose shells or wood.
Unit E — Astarte tenera Bed (about 1.00 m)
Grey silty clay speckled with coarse glauconite contains shell drifts, articulated Astarte tenera and large Arctica scutellaria. Rolled wood, seeds and cones are especially notable. Vertebrate remains are still rare despite being more frequent here than in adjoining Thanet beds; this is the horizon from which Callorhynchus newtoni was described.
Unit F — Tornatellaea parisiensis Bed (about 0.60 m)
Glauconitic silty sand contains abundant dispersed Corbula regulbiensis. Occasional silicified tabular masses preserve a much more diverse small fauna, including molluscs, bryozoans, barnacles and otoliths. These silicified concentrations differ from the calcite-cemented Reculver Tabular Band below.
Unit G — Corbula regulbiensis Bed (about 1.20 m)
Glauconitic silty sand contains characteristic silicified clusters of commonly articulated but rolled Corbula regulbiensis. The basal “scutellaria horizon” has brown glauconitic phosphatic matrix, large internal moulds of Arctica scutellaria and phosphatised burrows. Ward recorded rare Hoploparia gammaroides, including a specimen inside a shell mould.
Unit H — Woody Nodule bed (about 0.25 m)
Glauconitic sandy silt contains large pyrite concretions that enclose twigs or small, little-abraded branches. Ward recorded no calcareous fossils in this interval. Its pyritised wood is vulnerable after collection and should not be confused with a loose modern plant fragment.
Unit I — Upper glauconitic sandy silt (about 1.25 m)
This upper Thanet interval yielded no observed macrofossils in Ward’s account. Short unlined vertical burrows occur, as they do in underlying beds. “Unfossiliferous” here means no recorded macrofossil assemblage, not an absence of all biological traces.
LAMBETH GROUP
The overlying beds are described for their westward continuation and cliff context; they are not all exposed together on the beach below Reculver Towers. Their historical “Woolwich Bottom Bed” terminology needs to be distinguished from modern formation names.
Upnor Formation
The current local framework places Ward’s J and K in the Upnor Formation. BGS treats the formation as late Thanetian, rather than assigning all the Upnor beds here to the Eocene. The exact regional correlations of these eastern marine beds have been debated.
Unit J — Beltinge Fish Bed (about 0.40 m)
Dark olive-grey silty clay contains rounded flint pebbles, glauconitic grains, pyritised burrows and lignitic material. Vertebrate remains concentrate in pebble stringers. The productive named fish-bed outcrop lies towards Beltinge; it is context for the westward succession, not a promise of the same shark-tooth abundance at Reculver.
Unit K — Woolwich Marine Bed (about 5.20 m)
Intensely burrowed grey-green silty sand weathers yellowish grey. Abraded wood is common and vertebrate remains are much rarer than in J. Its heterogeneity and burrows help distinguish it from superficially similar upper Thanet sand.
THAMES GROUP
Younger marine deposits overlie the eroded top of the Lambeth Group westwards along the cliff section. The formations are separate from the Reculver Sand Member below.
Harwich Formation
The sand and basal gravel formerly grouped as the Oldhaven Formation are placed within the Harwich Formation in the BGS framework.
Oldhaven Member
Glauconitic sands with shell lenses record a higher-energy marine interval. “Herne Bay Member” in some older literature is an alternative name, not an additional unit.
Unit L — Basal Pebble Bed (0–0.30 m)
Rounded black and brown flints lie in sand or silty sand, locally cemented by ironstone. The bed is absent in places and may contain rolled shark teeth and turtle fragments. Ward rejected the simple assumption that the modern shingle bank called the Rand directly traces this bed.
Unit M — Glauconitic silty sand (about 0.75 m)
This non-cross-bedded unit rests directly on the eroded underlying succession where L is absent. Shell lenses are less common than in the overlying sand but can be well preserved in fresh cliff material.
Unit N — Cross-bedded glauconitic sand (about 6 m)
Shell drifts of disarticulated bivalves, especially Arctica morrisi, occur through the sand. Fish and turtle material and occasional wood concentrate in these drifts. Cemented tabular blocks may preserve shells, while decalcification higher in the cliff can leave selenite sand roses. These sandstone blocks are distinct from Unit B’s tabular band.
London Clay Formation
London Clay caps parts of the western cliff succession. Its fresh blue-grey clay weathers brown; this upper-cliff context should not overshadow the Thanet mollusc beds that characterise the Reculver collecting area.
Unit O — Historical London Clay Basement Bed (0–0.60 m)
Ward’s glauconitic silty clay with occasional rounded flints, silt streaks and pyritised wood is locally absent. The historic “Basement Bed” concept crosses later stratigraphic schemes. Unit O is a locally described horizon and is not automatically equivalent to the whole Harwich Formation.
Unit P — London Clay above the basal interval
Stiff blue-grey clay contains pyrite, pyritised fossils and cementstones. Ward gave 36.9 m for the broader Herne Bay London Clay section, much of it already obscured by stabilisation; that is not the exposed London Clay thickness at Reculver.
Structure and lateral exposure
The succession generally dips westwards, but the Reculver Tabular Band first appears near the eastern end and rises before turning down westward. Small faults around the former coastguard station repeat or displace its foreshore outcrop. Apparent repetition of sandstone blocks should therefore not be counted as additional beds.
References
Aldiss 2014, Palaeogene stratigraphical framework, OR/14/008
Ward 1978, Lower London Tertiary succession of Herne Bay, IGS Report 78/10, public facsimile
BGS Lexicon: Reculver Sand Member
BGS Lexicon: London Clay Formation
Holmes 1981, Geology of the country around Faversham, Sheet 273
SAFETY
The rising tide can reach the cliff foot and cut off the beach. Plan around local tide predictions, use a falling tide where appropriate and leave a generous return margin to the established exit.
Keep well away from sandy faces, overhangs and fresh falls. Do not climb cliffs to reach shell bands or to escape an incoming tide; turn back while the beach route is safe.
EQUIPMENT
Bring rigid boxes, soft wrapping, a hand lens, tide information and a charged phone. A small support tool may help lift an already loose matrix block where collecting is allowed; it does not authorise digging into cliffs or the platform.
CLEANING AND TREATING
Carry fragile shells supported by their original matrix and avoid forceful brushing, soaking or abrupt drying. The old repeated dilute-PVA recipe is unsuitable as a universal treatment; seek advice on a reversible conservation material if a specimen needs support.
Silicified shells, calcite-rich concretions and soft sandy material need different preparation. Keep pyritic wood separately under appropriate dry, stable storage and leave rare fish material unprepared for identification.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
Need help identifying a fossil? Share clear photos, where you found it and its size with the community.
FURTHER READING
Deposits: Thanet anticline’s shifting shorelines (regional coastal context)
Ward 1978, Lower London Tertiary succession of Herne Bay, IGS Report 78/10, public facsimile
BGS Lexicon: Reculver Sand Member
Daley and Balson 1999, London Basin eastern localities, GCR15
Aldiss 2014, Palaeogene stratigraphical framework, OR/14/008
ACCESS RIGHTS
The Bishopstone–Reculver coast forms part of the Thanet Coast SSSI. Keep to open established access routes, avoid cliff excavation and minimise disturbance to shore habitats.
Use permitted loose material and follow current signs. Obtain the relevant landowner and conservation agreement before any intrusive collecting.
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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