TURNED TO STONE

Buffeted by blustery winds, I clamber over the boulders of Monmouth Beach – the wilder side of the genteel Dorset town of Lyme Regis. Every few moments I stop to examine clusters of fossils visible in the smooth limestone. The whirls are ammonites, an extinct relative of the nautilus, for which this stretch of coast is famous. It’s thrilling to find so many, a feast of fossils, especially as I’ve never seen an ammonite in its natural setting before, only in museums and shops, dressed and polished. Twenty minutes on, I reach the main goal of this energetic walk, the extraordinary ammonite pavement, visible only at low tide. As the waves recede, a mass of dinner plate-sized fossils smoothed by the waves are revealed. The pavement is a glorious relic of the Jurassic era of 140 to 200 million years ago.

Naturalist Steve Bullen is by my side, here as our guide on