Seagrove Bay is a bay on the northeast coast of the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It lies to the east of the village of Seaview facing towards

Selsey Bill Selsey Bill is a headland into the English Channel on the south coast of England in the county of West Sussex. The southernmost town in Sussex is Selsey which is at the end of the Manhood Peninsula and ''Selsey Bill'' is situated on the town's so ...

with a shoreline stretching from Nettlestone Point in the north to Horestone Point in the south. The bay has both the Seaside Award Flag and the Water Quality Award. Roughly at the centre is a public

slipway A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch or boat deployer, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats, and for launching and retrieving small ...

, to the north of the slipway is a straight pebble beach and there are many shallow private mooring buoys out in the bay. At the southernmost end of the bay is a wooden

walkway In American English, walkway is a composite or umbrella term for all engineered surfaces or structures which support the use of trails. '' The New Oxford American Dictionary'' also defines a walkway as "a passage or path for walking along, esp. a ...

which gives access from the end of the seawall to Horestone Point and

Priory Bay Priory Bay is a small privately owned bay on the northeast coast of the Isle of Wight, England. It lies to the east of Nettlestone village and another mile along the coast from Seaview. It stretches from Horestone Point in the north to Nodes ...

beyond even during the high tide. The bay previously had public toilets which were demolished in 2015 - with a new block set to be built. Though as of 2018 the construction is stalled due to a land-dispute and portaloos had to be installed at the beach for tourists. The bay is used in the title of the life peer Lord Oakeshott as ''Baron Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, of Seagrove in the county of Isle of Wight''.

Geography

The bay was created between two rocky

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

headlands by the

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 waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landwa ...

of a soft clay stata due to this weak geology the bay used to be prone to landslips. The sea bottom is sandy and gently shallowing.

Coastal management

To the south of the slipway is a curved concrete

seawall A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...

protecting the shoreline, properties and boathouses. In addition, there are four 100ft

groynes A groyne (in the U.S. groin) is a rigid hydraulic 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, concre ...

made of rock piles running out perpendicularly from the seawall into the bay. Each one has a post with a red can marking its seaward end. The beach between the groynes is predominantly sand but is completely covered at high water. After a number of landslips around the isle in the early 2000s slope reactivation measures were used to support to the shoreline and also due to coastal winds the sandy beach had depleted. Beach levels fell around a metre (3ft) in the decade prior to 2007, this affected the seawall by exposing the foundations so work to correct this was undertaken.

References

{{Bays on the Isle of Wight Bays of the Isle of Wight Beaches of the Isle of Wight