Poole Bay is a bay in the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

, on the coast of

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

in southern

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, which stretches 16km from Sandbanks at the mouth of

Poole Harbour Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley ( ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being th ...

in the west, to

Hengistbury Head Hengistbury Head (), formerly also called Christchurch Head, is a headland jutting into the English Channel between Bournemouth and Mudeford in the English county of Dorset. It is a site of international importance in terms of its archaeolog ...

in the east. Poole Bay is a relatively shallow

embayment A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

and consists of steep sandstone cliffs and several 'chines' that allow easy access to the sandy beaches below. The coast along the bay is continuously built up, and is part of the South East Dorset conurbation, including parts of the towns of

Poole Poole () is a coastal town and seaport on the south coast of England in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area in Dorset, England. The town is east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east ...

Bournemouth Bournemouth ( ) is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 196,455, making it the largest ...

and

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

. In terms of sand on England's south coast the bay presents the longest stretch; much exceeded by the total to the west across numerous bays and coves but greater than the three such stretches to the east, Avon Beach, West Wittering and

Camber Sands Camber Sands is a beach in East Sussex, England, in the village of Camber, near Rye. It is the only sand dune system in East Sussex. Located east of the estuary of the River Rother at Rye Bay, it stretches to just beyond the Kent border, w ...

History

Measures to prevent

coastal erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of Wind wave, waves, Ocean current, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts ...

have been deployed throughout the 20th century. Concrete seawalls and

groynes A groyne (in the U.S. groin) is a rigid aquatic structure built perpendicularly from an ocean shore (in coastal engineering) or a river bank, interrupting water flow and limiting the movement of sediment. It is usually made out of wood, concrete ...

allowed the construction of homes and roads on the clifftops, but prevented natural supply of sand and gravel to the shore. From 1970 to 2000 over 1.5 million m³ of sand was used to replenish the beaches at Bournemouth and Poole. Many of the beaches along Poole Bay were replenished during the winters of 2005 and 2006 with 1.1 million m³ of sand dredged from Poole Harbour and 700,000 m³ of sand dredged from a Licensed Area off the Isle of Wight. In 2015 a 17-year £43.7million project was approved to protect the beaches from further erosion over the next century. The plans involve replacing the groynes and adding new ones and replenishing the beaches with 210,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel every three years.

Archaeology

In July 2022, marine archaeologists from

Bournemouth University Bournemouth University is a public university in Bournemouth, England, with its main campus situated in neighbouring Poole. The university was founded in 1992; however, the origins of its predecessor date back to the early 1900s. The universi ...

unearthed the relics of a 750 years old medieval

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...

and its cargo off the coast of

. Definite date of the ship was determined by tree ring dating method. Due to the combination of low-oxygenated water, sand and stone, one of the whole sides of the ship was well preserved and the hull was prominently visible, according to archaeologist Tom Cousins. Known as the Clinker ship in its design, the ship was carrying a load of Purbeck stones. Much of the cargo included many Purbeck stone

mortars Mortar may refer to: * Mortar (weapon), an indirect-fire infantry weapon * Mortar (masonry), a material used to fill the gaps between blocks and bind them together * Mortar and pestle, a tool pair used to crush or grind * Mortar, Bihar, a village i ...

, large stones used by mills to grind grain into flour.

Geology

The area of Poole Bay was predominantly created during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

period, when the Solent river ran across the whole of South East Dorset and West Hampshire, out past the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

The solid geology of the cliffs, and the seabed beneath Poole Bay, is composed of rocks of the Tertiary Bracklesham Group, consisting of a sequence of fine, medium and coarse sands. At

there are younger rocks of the Bartonian group, forming an outlier. The Barton Clay here is made up of a series of sands and interbedded clays, with four distinct bands of ironstone nodules. These formations dip eastwards and are cut out by a north-west to south-east trending fault. This defines the eastwards boundary of Christchurch Ledge, which is a seawards continuation of the resistant ironstone strata exposed in Hengistbury Head.

References

{{reflist Poole Harbour Geography of Bournemouth Bays of Dorset