Between Bude and Widemouth Bay, Upton Cross exposes steep sandstone ribs and dark shale with fossil-bearing concretions. The late Carboniferous Bude Formation has yielded fragmentary fish, burrows and arthropod traces, although finds are uncommon. This is a tide-dependent rocky shore, and the present beach approach must be checked before visiting.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦ – Fossils are localised in shale and concretions; many nodules are barren, and complete fish are exceptional.
CHILDREN: ♦ – A remote, rocky foreshore with steep access, unstable cliffs and tidal pinch points; unsuitable for an unplanned family collecting visit.
ACCESS: ♦♦ – Approach via the current signed Coast Path route at Upton. An old beach descent and parking place are not verified as usable.
TYPE: Coastal cliff and foreshore exposures of folded Bude Formation sandstone, siltstone and fossil-bearing shale.
DIRECTIONS
♦ Approach Upton by Marine Drive, the coastal road between Widemouth Bay and Bude. Use a lawful parking place and follow current local signs; do not rely on the small roadside lay-by and concrete-block parking instructions in older accounts.
♦ Follow the currently signed Coast Path. The official Upton route notice records a cliff-instability closure and realignment using a public bridleway and the Marine Drive pavement. It does not confirm that the old beach descent has reopened.
♦ Establish a safe, permitted shore route locally before descending. The original fossil areas lie around the stack/headland, with one shale occurrence on its south side and a larger occurrence north of it. Do not round the headland unless a safe return remains clear.
♦ Original locality reference: 50.81479°N, 4.55550°W. This identifies the collecting locality, not a verified parking bay or current descent.
FOSSIL HUNTING
The productive material is dark shale and its concretions rather than every conspicuous sandstone rib. The original guide distinguishes a smaller shale occurrence just south of the stack from a larger occurrence around its northern side. The smaller exposure was reported to yield rare fish fragments identified as Cornuboniscus budensis. Treat this as a historical locality record, not a promise of a modern species-level identification or a claim that the fish occurs nowhere else.
The larger shale occurrence was described about 300 m from the old beach entry. Its nodule-bearing part was estimated at 7 m, with another 11 m of black shale. Those historical measurements must not be added to, or substituted for, the separately measured North Upton section described below. Folding and faults complicate both bed thickness and the relationship between the two collecting spots.
The old account describes sandy, apparently barren nodules in the lower part of the larger package; smoother concretions associated with burrows in its middle part; and flattened, disc-like septarian nodules higher up, reported to contain fish remains, burrows and xiphosurid trails. Septarian cracks are mineral-filled fractures and are not fossils themselves. These nodule categories remain useful recognition clues, but their exact modern correlation and present exposure need a field check. “Higher” beds cannot always be found simply by walking north across folded or faulted ground.
A convincing fish fragment may preserve repeated scales, fin rays or bones in a coherent arrangement. A shiny patch or isolated dark flake is insufficient. Burrows can appear as continuous tubes or winding relief on a bedding surface; veins that cut several layers and current-made grooves have different origins. Xiphosurid trails are arthropod activity traces, sometimes showing paired marks, rather than the body of a horseshoe crab. Do not assign a trace name from a vague resemblance.
Look at safely reached, already exposed surfaces and permitted loose material well away from unstable cliffs. The original guide also reported the northern horizon on the foreshore beside a fault, about 11 m south of its cliff occurrence; this is an old observation, not an instruction to excavate or a verified present-day route. Photograph unusual fish or trackways with a scale and record whether they came from a known bed or mixed beach debris. Keep any naturally separated part and counterpart together when removal is permitted.
A chronological record of fossil discoveries, geological research and site history at Upton Cross.
2013 – North Upton succession logged
Detailed sedimentological and deformation research documented North Upton Log 10 through and around Tom’s Cove Shale, illustrating the lower ripple-bearing beds, intervening sandstone and two black-shale intervals. The publication provides a measured local framework; it is not the date of the first fossil discovery.
December 2019 – Coast Path realigned after cliff instability
A section of the path at Upton was closed and diverted via a public bridleway and Marine Drive pavement. This records a consequential change to the coastal approach, without establishing a permanent beach closure or confirming the condition of an older descent.
GEOLOGY
Upton’s rocks belong to the Bude Formation of the Holsworthy Group. They are late Carboniferous; “Bude Sandstone” is an older name used for the sandstone-rich succession. The formation’s regional Langsettian–Bolsovian age range is broader than the age of any single nodule horizon. Alternations of resistant sandstone and softer shale explain the ribbed foreshore and the recessive fossil-bearing intervals.
Sand and silt arrived in energetic sediment flows, interrupted by quieter periods of mud accumulation. Rippled surfaces, trough cross-stratification, planar lamination, flame structures and mud clasts preserve different aspects of deposition and early sediment movement. The depositional setting remains debated: a large lake with marine incursions has been proposed, while wave, tidal and sediment-gravity-flow interpretations are considered for particular beds. One model should not be applied indiscriminately to every layer.
Later Variscan compression folded and faulted the succession. The old guide describes landslip-obscured cliffs near its entrance, folded sandstone higher in the cliff and a wrench fault near the small stack beneath the storm beach. These observations help explain why similar shale can recur and why an exposed cliff face is not a simple vertical time sequence. Early deformation of still-soft sediment must also be distinguished from the later folds and faults.
An approximately 9 m sedimentological log at North Upton records the succession through and around Tom’s Cove Shale. Its lower rippled sandstone–siltstone packages pass into two dark shale intervals separated by a thin sandstone, with rippled beds returning at the top. This measured window is distinct from the old guide’s larger nodule-bearing exposure; no secure bed-by-bed link between every historic collecting spot and this log has been established.
Detailed geology and stratigraphy of Upton Cross, including the limits of local correlation.
The measured inventory below follows Harper’s North Upton Log 10, Figure 3.5, at the published grid reference SS200049. It is an approximately 9 m local window through and around Tom’s Cove Shale, read upwards from its base. The numbered descriptive packages organise the published graphic; they are not formal bed numbers. Graphic positions are approximate, and no thickness is inferred for individual thin laminae.
HOLSWORTHY GROUP
The Bude Formation belongs to this sandstone- and mudstone-rich Carboniferous group. The group designation describes formal stratigraphic affiliation, not an additional exposed layer above the formation.
Bude Formation
Alternating sandstone, siltstone and mudstone include laterally useful dark shale horizons. Modern BGS usage gives a Langsettian–Bolsovian range for the formation as a whole. Its minimum regional thickness of about 1,290 m is not the thickness exposed at Upton. Tom’s Cove Shale is treated here as a named subordinate horizon, not a formal member.
Package 1: basal sandstone
At the base of Log 10, sandstone has faint trough cross-stratification, with hummocky cross-stratification towards the top. These internal structures are evidence about sediment transport; the graphic does not supply a separate numbered bed thickness.
Package 2: cross-stratified sand and silt
Sand–silt trough cross-stratification overlies the basal sandstone. Flame structures occur at the base of this package, recording deformation where sediment layers interacted before full consolidation.
Package 3: ripples passing to planar lamination
Mud-draped sand–silt ripples pass into planar lamination. Bedding-parallel veins occupy some muddier laminae; the veins are later mineral features and should not be mistaken for burrows.
Package 4: ripples with mud clasts
A further mud-draped sand–silt ripple package contains mud clasts towards its top. The clasts represent pieces of sediment incorporated into the deposit, not a new fossil-bearing member.
Package 5: planar to trough cross-stratified lamination
Planar lamination passes upwards into faint, mud-draped sand–silt trough cross-stratification. The published log preserves this internal change rather than reducing the lower succession to undifferentiated sandstone.
Package 6: flames, ripples and planar lamination
Basal flame structures accompany mud-draped sand–silt ripples and planar lamination. No independent age or separate fauna is assigned to this package.
Package 7: rippled interval below the shale
A further mud-draped sand–silt ripple package immediately underlies the thick dark shale. The source considers tidal and minor-wave influence or turbiditic processes; the textures do not establish one exclusive environmental interpretation.
Package 8: lower thick black shale
The main lower shale interval starts at approximately 4.3 m on the plotted scale. Black shale contains subordinate sandstone and siltstone stringers. This is a height within the source’s local log, not a cliff-height measurement or a new thickness for the historic nodule bed.
Package 9: intervening thin sandstone
At approximately 7.3–7.5 m in the graphic, an apparently massive sandstone contains mud injections, basal flame structures and flute structures. The source interprets this bed as a turbidite. The plotted position is approximate, so a precise new thickness is not asserted.
Package 10: upper black shale
Above the intervening sandstone lies another black-shale interval with sandstone and siltstone stringers. It is distinct from the lower thick shale in this measured window. The diagram does not demonstrate that either shale exactly matches every historic fish-bearing nodule occurrence.
Package 11: upper ripples and planar lamination
Near the approximately 9 m top, mud-draped sand–silt ripples with planar lamination mark renewed sand and silt deposition. The source again considers tidal influence or turbidites. This is the top of the documented window, not the top of the formation.
Historic nodule-bearing shale observations
The original guide’s larger northern exposure was described as a 7 m nodule-bearing interval associated with a further 11 m of black shale. Sandy nodules were reported low in the package, smoother burrow-bearing concretions in the middle, and flattened septarian concretions with fish and arthropod traces higher up. A smaller southern shale was reported to contain rare Cornuboniscus budensis fragments. These observations are retained with their historical scope; they cannot be fused into the approximately 9 m Log 10 or assigned unverified modern horizon names.
Faults, folds and exposed surfaces
The old account locates a wrench fault near the stack beneath a storm beach, describes landslip-obscured lower cliffs and notes a fault-related foreshore reappearance of shale about 11 m from the northern occurrence. The wider coast has repeated and fault-truncated strata. Bed orientation, geographic direction and stratigraphic younging must therefore be checked separately; regional marker-shale schemes are context, not a complete local exposure inventory.
References
Harper (2013), Assessing the mechanical state of sediment and rock during deformation, University of Leeds thesis, Figure 3.5, North Upton Log 10, p.58
BGS Lexicon: Holsworthy Group
BGS Lexicon: Bude Formation
Craven & Lloyd (2023), structural and stratigraphic interpretation of the Bude coast
SAFETY
The stack and headland are tidal pinch points. Check local tide predictions, swell and weather, retain a clear escape route and turn back well before the sea closes it. The former rule of arriving three hours after high water is not a reliable safety margin, and a falling tide alone does not make the route safe.
Cliff instability has affected the path. Keep away from cliff bases, overhangs and fresh falls; do not use an old descent without current verification. A helmet does not make standing beneath an unstable cliff safe. Wet shale, sharp tilted sandstone ribs, weed and rounded boulders make the shore slippery.
This rocky route is unsuitable for an unplanned visit with young children or anyone unable to negotiate steep, uneven ground. Tell someone your route and return time, and do not rely on mobile reception or assistance being close at hand.
EQUIPMENT
Carry grippy footwear, waterproof clothing, water, a map, tide information and a basic first-aid kit. A hand lens, camera, scale and notebook are useful for examining exposed surfaces. Bring a rigid container and wrapping only if small loose specimens may lawfully be collected; a splitting hammer is not essential or permission to sample the exposure.
CLEANING AND TREATING
Support thin shale flat in a rigid box and wrap pieces separately. Label each permitted specimen before cleaning and keep its counterpart and associated fragments. Begin with a soft dry brush and magnification, leaving fragile fish detail and carbonaceous films untouched.
Avoid soaking shale, rapid heating, acid treatment of concretions, polishing or routine varnish. Pyritic patches need monitoring and material-specific conservation. A coherent fish or unusual trackway should retain its matrix and remain unprepared for expert assessment.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
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FURTHER READING
Jens Lehmann (2020), Fabulous folds: Variscan tectonics in southwest England, Deposits Magazine; regional background
Harper (2013), Assessing the mechanical state of sediment and rock during deformation, University of Leeds thesis, Figure 3.5, North Upton Log 10, p.58
BGS Lexicon: Bude Formation
BGS Lexicon: Holsworthy Group
Craven & Lloyd (2023), structural and stratigraphic interpretation of the Bude coast
South West Coast Path: Upton route realignment notice
Natural England: Bude Coast SSSI citation
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (2004), Standards in the Museum Care of Geological Collections
ACCESS RIGHTS
Follow current public-path notices and establish a safe, permitted beach approach. The historic guide’s unrestricted collecting statement is not current permission, and a right to walk does not automatically include taking fossils or rocks.
Check ownership, on-site rules and the exact protected-site boundary before removing anything. Nearby cliffs form part of Bude Coast SSSI; a guide point does not establish the designation or removal rights at every exposure. Observation and photography are appropriate while removal permission remains unresolved. Do not excavate beds, hammer cliffs or dislodge concretions.
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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