Kimmeridge is a small village in the Purbeck district of Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, situated on the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

 coast. Kimmeridge is about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) south of Wareham

Wareham, Dorset

Wareham is an historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles southwest of Poole.-Situation and geography:...

 and about 8 kilometres (5 mi) west of Swanage

Swanage

Swanage is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is situated at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck, approximately 10 km south of Poole and 40 km east of Dorchester. The parish has a population of 10,124 . Nearby are Ballard Down and Old Harry Rocks,...

 and is on the Isle of Purbeck

Isle of Purbeck

The Isle of Purbeck, not a true island but a peninsula, is in the county of Dorset, England. It is bordered by the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the north. Its western boundary is less well...

. The village has a population of 110 (2001).

Beneath the cliffs there is a large wave-cut platform

Wave-cut platform

A wave-cut platform, or shore platform is the narrow flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shoreline of a lake, bay, or sea that was created by the action of waves. Wave-cut platforms are often most obvious at low tide when they become visible as huge areas of flat rock...

 (known as The Flats) and a rocky shore

Rocky shore

A rocky shore is an intertidal area of seacoasts where solid rock predominates. Rocky shores are biologically rich environments, and make the ideal natural laboratory for studying intertidal ecology and other biological processes...

 with good quality rock pools and variety of rocky shore wildlife. The coast at Kimmeridge is usually warm, and ideal for studying seaweed and other organisms. The top, middle and lower beaches are not easily definable without markings, but are relatively easy to place.

Kimmeridge Bay is a surfer

Surfing

Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...

 area. Although it breaks infrequently due to its lack of exposure to Atlantic swells when it is on it produces walls of water. Below the cliffs to the East is 'The Ledges', slow left and right hand breaking waves.This break can have right-handers which spiral for 70 yards or more into the bay. To the West is 'Broad Bench', within the Ministry of Defence firing range

Lulworth Military Range

Lulworth Military Range is a military firing range located between Wareham and Lulworth in Dorset, England. It is owned by the Ministry of Defence and is part of the Armoured Fighting Vehicles Gunnery School....

 and only accessible when the ranges are open to the public.

Notable buildings

Directly east of Kimmeridge bay (above Hen Cliff

Hen Cliff

Hen Cliff is part of the Jurassic Coast near Kimmeridge in the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, England. It runs from the eastern end of Kimmeridge Bay east to an area called Cuddle. The cliffs consist of ledges of dolomite interspersed with thicker units of shale. Rockfalls are common and dangerous...

) is a folly

Folly

In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs...

 known as Clavell Tower

Clavell Tower

Clavell Tower, also known as Clavell Folly or the Kimmeridge Tower, is a Grade II listed Tuscan style tower built in 1830. It lies on the Jurassic Coast, on the top of Hen Cliff just east of Kimmeridge Bay in the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, England.-History:...

 which inspired P.D. James's novel The Black Tower

The Black Tower

The Black Tower is an Adam Dalgliesh novel by P.D. James, published in 1975.-Plot outline:"Adam Dalgliesh, convalescing after a severe illness, arrives at Toynton Grange , the rest home for the young disabled, just too late to find out why his old friend Father Baddeley had sent for him...

. Because it was in danger of falling down the eroding cliff, the tower has been dismantled and reassembled 35 metres further back from the cliff edge. The tower is available as a holiday let.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution

Royal National Lifeboat Institution

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as well as on selected inland waterways....

 stationed a lifeboat

Lifeboat (rescue)

A rescue lifeboat is a boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress, or its survivors, to rescue crewmen and passengers. It can be hand pulled, sail powered or powered by an engine...

 at Kimmeridge in 1868 but it was removed in 1896.

The parish church was mostly built in 1872.

Geology

The village stands on Jurassic

Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to  Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...

 shale

Shale

Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...

 cliffs, and gives its name to the Kimmeridgian

Kimmeridgian

In the geologic timescale, the Kimmeridgian is an age or stage in the Late or Upper Jurassic epoch or series. It spans the time between 155.7 ± 4 Ma and 150.8 ± 4 Ma . The Kimmeridgian follows the Oxfordian and precedes the Tithonian....

, the division of the Jurassic period in which the beds were laid down, because of the quality of the cliffs and the fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s they yield. It is part of the Jurassic Coast

Jurassic Coast

The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage in East Dorset, a distance of ....

 World Heritage Site

World Heritage Site

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...

 because of the quality and variety of geological landforms along the coast. A Jurassic Coast Visitor Centre is situated in Kimmeridge.

The bay is also the type locality

Type locality (geology)

Type locality , also called type area or type locale, is the where a particular rock type, stratigraphic unit, fossil or mineral species is first identified....

 for the Jurassic age Kimmeridge Clay

Kimmeridge Clay

The Kimmeridge Clay Formation is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Jurassic age. It occurs in Europe.Kimmeridge Clay is arguably the most economically important unit of rocks in the whole of Europe, being the major source rock for oil fields in the North Sea hydrocarbon...

 formation, which is well represented in southern England, and provides one of the source rock

Source rock

In petroleum geology, source rock refers to rocks from which hydrocarbons have been generated or are capable of being generated. They form one of the necessary elements of a working petroleum system. They are organic-rich sediments that may have been deposited in a variety of environments including...

s for hydrocarbons found in the Wessex and North Sea Basins.

Oil field

On the cliff west of the village is the BP

BP

BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...

 "nodding donkey" oil pump which has been pumping continually since the late 1950s, making it the oldest working oil pump in the UK. The well currently yields around 65 oilbbl/d from the Middle Jurassic

Middle Jurassic

The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from 176-161 million years ago. In European lithostratigraphy, rocks of this Middle Jurassic age are called the Dogger....

 strata

Stratum

In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...

 that lie around 350 metres (1,148.3 ft) below the cliff. The well has been operating for this long because it has tapped into a network of connected reserves; however the yield is decreasing year on year. The oil is transported by tanker to the BP site at Wytch Farm

Wytch Farm

Wytch Farm is an oil field and processing facility in the Purbeck district of Dorset, England. It is the largest onshore oil field in western Europe. The facility, operated by BP, is hidden in a coniferous forest on Wytch Heath on the southern shore of Poole Harbour, two miles north of Corfe Castle...

 from whence it is piped to the main refinery on Southampton Water.

See also

• List of Dorset beaches
• List of places on the Jurassic Coast
• Geology of Dorset
  Geology of Dorset
  Dorset, England, rests on a variety of different rock types which give the county its interesting landscapes and habitats. Dorset is particularly noted for its coastline, the Jurassic Coast, which in 2001 was designated a World Heritage Site because of the variety of landforms and fossils...
  
  

External links

• Wytch Farm environmental award
• Purbeck District Council