White Park Bay (also spelled Whitepark Bay) is a bay and three-mile long beach located near
Ballycastle, County Antrim, on the north coast of
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, along the
Giant’s Causeway Coastal Route. Sheep and cattle graze the hills and beach along the bay, which has been under the care of the
since 1938. It is situated in the
townland
A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic origi ...
of
White Park White Park may refer to:
;Places:
* White Park Bay, in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK
* White Park, County Antrim, a townland in Northern Ireland, UK
* White Park (Concord, New Hampshire), a public park in Concord, New Hampshire, US
* White P ...
. The bay is also home to the Whitepark Bay Youth Hostel. The beach is unsuitable for swimming due to rip currents.
A
cairn
A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ).
Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...
above the beach is designated as a Scheduled Historic Monument at grid ref: D0225 4403.
Geology
Whitepark Bay also hosts a great display of Ireland's geological past. The cliffs on both West and East sides of the bay are composed of Upper Cretaceous (Santonian- lower Maastrichtian) chalk. The chalk itself is a form of limestone composed almost entirely of Calcium Carbonate. This chalk formed Late during the Cretaceous period, a time when many marine transgressions took place, and much of the continents were under water- as was
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. In relation to the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
as a whole, it's thought that, at the ocean's highest, only a few mountain peaks of Northern Scotland would have stood out of the water. The cliffs at White Park Bay are rich in fragments of the belemnite, Belemnitella mucronata. Belemnitella was one of the latest surviving Belemnites. Belemnites, an important and distinctive fossil important for zonation and biostratigraphy of Mesozoic marine deposits, were related to today's modern Coleoid Cephalopods, looked superficially similar to squid, and possessed hundreds of hooks on each of their arms which they used presumably to catch their prey of other small marine creatures.
See also
*
Ballycastle, County Antrim
References
External links
{{Commons category, White Park Bay
Beaches of Northern Ireland
National Trust properties in Northern Ireland