Budle Bay is a wide bay on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

, England, between

Bamburgh Bamburgh ( ) is a village and civil parish on the coast of Northumberland, England. It had a population of 454 in 2001, decreasing to 414 at the 2011 census. Bamburgh was the centre of an independent north Northumbrian territory between 867 a ...

to the southeast and

Lindisfarne Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parishes in England, civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th centu ...

to the northwest. The bay is roughly square in plan opening to the North Sea along its northeastern side. Budle Point forms its eastern extremity. It is overlooked by

Bamburgh Castle Bamburgh Castle, on the northeast coast of England, by the village of Bamburgh in Northumberland, is a Grade I listed building. The site was originally the location of a Celtic Britons, Celtic Brittonic fort known as ''Din Guarie'' and may have ...

Golf Club at this point and by the

Northumberland Coast Path The Northumberland Coast Path is a long distance path in Northumberland in northern England. It now forms part of the England Coast Path. The path starts at Cresswell and then heads north along the coast through Amble and Warkworth, where i ...

and St Oswald's Way which share a common route in this vicinity. Waren Burn enters the bay at its southern corner whilst Ross Low, a smaller

burn A burn is an injury to skin, or other tissues, caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, friction, or ionizing radiation (such as sunburn, caused by ultraviolet radiation). Most burns are due to heat from hot fluids (called scalding), soli ...

enters from the western corner. The two streams meet in the

intertidal zone The intertidal zone or foreshore is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide; in other words, it is the part of the littoral zone within the tidal range. This area can include several types of habitats with various ...

and continue east to the low water mark as Budle Water. The bay forms a part of the

Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve is a UK national nature reserve. It was founded to help safeguard the internationally important wintering bird populations, and six internationally important species of wildfowl and wading birds winter here. F ...

. It is also a part of the Goswick-Holy Island-Budle Bay GCR site These are sites listed in the

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...

as being of national importance; in this case for its coastal geomorphology. It is underlain by

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and other rock types of the Alston Formation though these are not exposed except along parts of its southeastern shore. The

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

microgabbro Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained ...

of the

Whin Sill The Whin Sill or Great Whin Sill is a tabular layer of the igneous rock dolerite in County Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria in the northeast of England. It lies partly in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and partly in N ...

occupies the higher ground on this southeastern side of the bay. There are extensive deposits of blown sand forming Ross Links at the opposite side of the bay and much of the bedrock on the southeastern side is obscured by similar

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

deposits.British Geological Survey 1903 1:50,000 scale geological map sheet no 4 (England and Wales series) ''Holy Island'' (1974 reprint) A seaport existed in Budle Bay up to the early twentieth century variously called Waren, Warenmouth and Warenquay.

References

{{reflist Bays of Northumberland Bamburgh