Flamborough Head () is a

promontory A promontory is a raised mass of land that projects into a lowland or a body of water (in which case it is a peninsula). Most promontories either are formed from a hard ridge of rock that has resisted the erosive forces that have removed the ...

, long on the

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

coast of England, between the Filey and Bridlington bays of the

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

. It is a

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

headland, with sheer white cliffs. The cliff top has two standing lighthouse towers, the oldest dating from 1669 and

Flamborough Head Lighthouse Flamborough Head Lighthouse is an active lighthouse located at Flamborough, East Riding of Yorkshire. England. Flamborough Head Lighthouse acts as a waypoint for passing deep sea vessels and coastal traffic, and marks Flamborough Head for vesse ...

built in 1806. The older lighthouse was designated a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

in 1952 and is now recorded in the National Heritage List for England, maintained by Historic England. The cliffs provide nesting sites for many thousands of seabirds, and are of international significance for their geology.

Special Area of Conservation

Flamborough Head has been designated a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) by the British Government's Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC). (Special Areas of Conservation are strictly protected sites designated under the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...

Habitats Directive, which requires the establishment of a European network of important high-quality conservation sites to make a significant contribution to conserving the 189 habitat types and 788 species identified in Annexes to this Directive.) Flamborough Outer Headland is an Local Nature Reserve. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust manages the Flamborough Cliffs Nature Reserve, located on the headland.

Site of Special Scientific Interest

The cliffs at Flamborough Head are designated a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

for both geological and biological significance. First designated in 1952, the SSSI area extends from Sewerby round the headland to Reighton Sands. The estimated 200,000 nesting seabirds, including one of only two mainland British gannetries, are the most notable biological feature.

Geology

The headland is the only

sea cliff in the north. The coastline within the SSSI has strata from the upper Jurassic through to top of the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

period, and the headland exhibits a complete sequence of

Chalk Group The Chalk Group (often just called the Chalk) is the lithostratigraphic unit (a certain number of rock strata) which contains the Upper Cretaceous limestone succession in southern and eastern England. The same or similar rock sequences occur acro ...

North Sea Basin strata, dated from 100 to 70 million years ago. The various chalk deposits are known as the Ferriby, Welton, Burnham and Flamborough Chalk. The dramatic white cliffs contrast with the low coast of Holderness to the south, where the chalk is deeply buried and the glacial boulder clay above erodes very readily. The chalk cliffs have a larger number and a wider range of cave habitats at Flamborough than at any other chalk site in Britain, the largest of which are known to extend for more than 50 metres from their entrance on the coast. There are also stacks, natural arches and blowholes. The site is identified as being of international importance in the Geological Conservation Review.

Birds

Seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same envir ...

s such as

northern gannet The northern gannet (''Morus bassanus'') is a seabird, the largest species of the gannet family, Sulidae. It is native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, breeding in Western Europe and Northeastern North America. It is the largest seabird in t ...

s, kittiwakes and

Atlantic puffin The Atlantic puffin ('), also known as the common puffin, is a species of seabird in the auk family. It is the only puffin native to the Atlantic Ocean; two related species, the tufted puffin and the horned puffin is found in the northeastern ...

s breed abundantly on the cliffs. Bempton Cliffs, on the north side of the headland, has an RSPB reserve and visitor centre. The shooting of seabirds at Flamborough Head was condemned by Professor Alfred Newton in his 1868 speech to the

British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chi ...

. Local MP Christopher Sykes introduced the

Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869 The Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 17) was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It was the first Act to protect wild birds in that country.Barclay-Smith (1959) History In 1868, Professor Alfred Newton addressed the Briti ...

, the first Act to protect wild birds in the United Kingdom. Shooting continued, with an 1886 edition of '' The Cornishman'' newspaper reporting the enormous flocks of sea birds are affording sport, with the fisherman killing the birds for selling to taxidermists; two boatmen were bagging a hundred birds daily. Because it projects into the sea, Flamborough Head attracts many migrant birds in autumn, and is a key point for observing passing seabirds. When the wind is in the east, many birders watch for seabirds from below the

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses m ...

, or later in the autumn comb the hedges and

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams ove ...

s for landbird migrants. Flamborough Head has a bird observatory.

Battle of Flamborough Head 1779

A Franco-American squadron fought the Battle of Flamborough Head with a pair of

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

frigates in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

on 23 September 1779. In the engagement, USS ''Bonhomme Richard'' and ''Pallas'', with , captured and HM hired armed ship , the best-known incident of Captain John Paul Jones's naval career. The

toposcope A toposcope, topograph, or orientation table is a kind of graphic display erected at viewing points on hills, mountains or other high places which indicates the direction, and usually the distance, to notable landscape features which can be seen f ...

at the lighthouse commemorates the 180th (1959) anniversary of the battle. North landing, Flamborough Head, Yorkshire

Associated places

Danes Dyke

Danes Dyke is a long ditch that runs north to south isolating the seaward of the headland. The dyke and the steep cliffs make the enclosed territory and its two boat launching beaches, North and South Landings, easily defended. Despite its name, the dyke is prehistoric in origin, and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

arrowheads An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as si ...

were found when it was excavated by Pitt-Rivers in 1879. It is a Local Nature Reserve.

Thornwick Bay

On the north side of Flamborough Head lies Thornwick Bay, a bay with a rock beach surrounded by cliffs. The second part of the name ''Thornwick'' comes from the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

word ''vík'' ('bay') (meaning that the modern name ''Thornwick Bay'' is tautologous). At the north side of the bay lies Thornwick Nebb, the final part of which comes from Old Norse ''neb'' ('promontory'). A plaque at Thornwick Bay commemorates the 1952 loss of Robert Redhead, the bowman of the Bridlington lifeboat, while attempting to rescue two girls, Joan Ellis and Gillian Fox, from drowning.

Cultural references

Flamborough Head and the village of Flamborough are the setting for the book ''Bill Takes the Helm'' by

Betty Bowen Betty Bowen (born Betty Cornelius) (1918–1977), was an American journalist and art promoter. She was born in Kent, Washington, and earned an English degree from the University of Washington. She worked briefly as a reporter for '' The Seattle Ti ...

. In the book an American boy struggles to save his grandmother's house – in which he, his sister and grandmother are living – from destruction by the sea. He is also desperately trying to get used to England after the death of his mother, who requested in her will that he be sent there. Flamborough Head was featured on the television programme ''

Seven Natural Wonders ''Seven Natural Wonders'' is a television series that was broadcast on BBC Two from 3 May to 20 June 2005. The programme takes an area of England each week and, from votes by the people living in that area, shows the 'seven natural wonders' of ...

'' as one of the wonders of

and briefly in the first series of ''

Coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

''. Flamborough Head was featured in the finale of series 3 of the ITV drama '' Scott & Bailey''. North Landing beach was used as a film location for the 2016 re-make of '' Dad's Army''.

Lightning strike

During the evening of 23 August 2006, a

lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous release of an average ...

bolt hit a

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

on the cliffs, sending 100 tonnes of rock into the sea.

References

External links

*
Flamborough Bird ObservatoryFlamborough Head InformationDanes DykeDutch symphonic rockgroup called Flamborough HeadVisitors' guide to Flamborough"Country diary: This sea cave keeps secrets"
at ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' {{Authority control Bird observatories in England Headlands of England Landforms of the East Riding of Yorkshire Local Nature Reserves in the East Riding of Yorkshire Mountains and hills of the United Kingdom with toposcopes Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the East Riding of Yorkshire Special Areas of Conservation in England Yorkshire coast Flamborough