Kent Beach Combing Guide - Hampton-On-Sea (studd hill)

This is the first in my series of beach combing guides to Kent. I have decided to do this as it is always nice to know what to expect or look out for, when on a certain beach. I will go into the type of beach and it's features, high tide and low tide, amenities, maps, and what can be found there.

I may add more in-depth geological information for fossil hunters, but my brother will have to help me there as he is the fossil expert. Until I have his input I will mention the fossils that can be found, and where I have found them.

This Kent beach combing guide covers the end of Herne Bay bech, to Hampton-on-Sea. Starting where the beach huts at the west end of Herne Bay end.

Beach Combing Guide to Hampton-on-Sea



Type of Beach: This is a shingle beach, with wooden groynes, there is a small pier jutting out at Hampton, and boulders as sea defenses. The shingle is made up of flint pebbles, quartz pebbles, and gravel.

At low tide, there is a mud and clay bed, with lots of mussel beds, and numerous oyster beds. There are low rocks which form rockpools full of life, and also a lot of crevices, like the gaps in the sea defense boulders, etc that are underwater during high tide, these crevices are ideal places to hunt for fossils and shells.

Hampton-on-Sea is a nice beach, with a small park, and residential area surrounding the bay. There is a promenade and low grassy hills, which once were clay cliffs, now taken by the sea. A popular area for dog walkers and cyclists.

At high tide people like to fish from the small pier.

For Kids?: To be honest I used to despair when my parents took me to Hampton-on-Sea. We mainly went there to swim though, at low tide it can get a bit muddy, it's not as kid friendly or as pretty as Herne Bay East to Beltinge IMO.

Amenities: There are toilets by a playing park on the seafront at Hampton-on-Sea, there is a pub on the road opposite the beach, and a short walk up the same road that runs along side the park, brings you to a well stocked shop. 

What Can Be Found There: 

Pretty Stones - Small pieces of yellow quartz pebble, smoothed by the sea, various coloured quartz pebbles, and tiny perfectly shaped pebbles in various colours.

Sea Glass - Plenty of beach glass in some rare colors, probably from the village that once stood where Hampton-on-Sea's bay is now. The pieces are small and found in the smaller gravel half way up the beach.

Sea Bricks and Sea Pottery - There is plenty of really small and cute pieces of orange sea pottery, it's really smooth and flat on this beach. There are large sea bricks too, but these are not as nicely shaped as the pieces found at Herne Bay East. 

This picture shows some tiny little pebbles and bits of sea pottery at Hampton. Each is about as big as my finger nail, and each is perfectly flattened and smoothed.

Fossils -  All kinds of weird and wonderful fossils to be found at Hampton-on-Sea. I have found vertibrea, seed pods (large and small) crabs, lots of sharks teeth, various bivalves, and lots of fossil wood. 

These fossils are found in the mud and clay, they become trapped on the mussel beds that grow there, and in the rock pools. Look for black and grey coloured stones as the fossils are usually a black or grey colour. 

Shells - A lot of shells on the high tide line, lots of mussels, cockles, large whelks, devils toe nails, and an abundance of oyster shells of all different species, some are really beautiful, and can get really big. 

Other Fun Things - I have found a lot of weird and wonderful things at Hampton-on-Sea, I used to live in Studd hill, in a house over looking the bay, so spent a lot of time there hunting about.

You can find china and bits of pottery, various weird metal objects, bullets from WW2, lots of fishing equipment, a lot of drift wood seems to wash up there too. We used to fuel our fire entirely from driftwood collected from the bay.