We’re currently on our glamping holiday in Devon which we have been looking forward to for ages. We made sure to book a fossil walk as this seemed like a great family activity, and we even found a dog-friendly one!

Fossil walk with Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre

We met outside the fascinating Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre. The guided walk was taken by a guide along with several volunteers. There must have been at least a hundred people of all ages, excited to go fossil hunting along the Jurassic coast.

Charmouth is a pretty coastal village on the Jurassic Coast which is a World Heritage Site. Although the coastline is protected you are allowed to take home any fossils you find which have fallen from the cliffs. So you cannot dig fossils out, but if they have fallen naturally or been eroded by the sea, they are yours.

We walked for 15 minutes from Charmouth Heritage Centre along the beach towards Lyme Regis. Although the tide was out it was still high, which meant we had to walk along the stony beach, which was hard work.  Soon we arrived at the bit of the beach chosen by the guide which was a good hunting ground for fossils.

She had already talked to us about the fossils we would find (and sent a handy video to watch at home before the tour). The fossils were all from different layers which were the remains of the ancient Jurassic sea from 195 million years ago. The most common fossils were ammonites, belemnites, crinoids and icthyosaurus vertebrae.

It was then time to start fossil spotting amongst the rocks and stones. We picked a patch of shingle and exposed foreshore that others hadn’t been to and soon started seeing fossils everywhere. The easiest to find were the belemnites and then we began to see ammonites everywhere!

The volunteers helped us identify our finds and had hammers to break open some of the ammonites. There are three kinds of ammonites and we found the Fools Gold ammonites easily.

The walk lasted 90 minutes and just sped by. Before we knew it we had pocketfuls of beautiful fossils. At the end of the guided walk we were able to show the rest of the group what we had found and there was an amazing range of fossils. One person had found over 30 belemnites but apparently this didn’t compare to the 250 found on one walk recently!

We would recommend signing up for one of the guided fossil hunting walks on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. They are family-friendly (dog-friendly too!). Just make sure you book in advance as the guided walks book up really quickly.

Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre
Lower Sea Lane
Charmouth
Dorset
DT6 6LL