Kent Beachcombing Guide - Deal to Beginning of Sandwich Bay Estate

Though the town of Deal itself is lovely, I have to admit that Deal beach is not the best place to go beachcombing, I'm going to find it hard to write this guide as after 3 hours walking and scanning, from Deal to the beginning of Sandwich Bay Estate, we found hardly anything at all.

The high tide line was pretty much non existent, and any shells that had been thrown up on the beach had been quickly smashed. It was clear that Deal beach does not catch much in the way of 'sea treasures' - It seems as if everything is pushed into Sandwich Bay instead. IMO There is a huge difference in beachcombing at Sandwich. (one of the best places I've been beachcombing) and Deal (one of the worst places I've been beachcombing)

Deal's great for fishing though, and the shingle beach makes a nice spot to sit and have fish and chips.

Old Pipe Found on Beach

My friend found this old pipe on the beach tother' day. He found it within five minutes of arriving at the beach (at 5 bloody am, in near darkness.) It was up on the high tide line stranded on the seaweed, and apart from missing half of the bowl, the stem was nearly intact.

The pipe looks brown in the picture, but was originally white. It has a stamp on the bowl. The stamp is the initial T.D, inside a heart, with a flower shape under the initials. I had a look online and found the same stamp on pipes from the 1600's-1700's. I read that a good way to date a pipe is to measure the hole in the stem. You can do this with small drill bits. We have not measured it yet, but intend to. It has a line down it that suggests that this pipe was made in a mold.

My Pet Sea Slater

This post is made up of three articles that I originally wrote on Bubblews about my 'pet' Sea Slater - (A marine woodlouse...) Yes, I'm weird, lol! . Anyhoo' I am deleting all of my posts from that site and will be re-housing some of them here on this blog.

Shrodingers Prawn

(originally published on Bubblews 21st August 2013) 

I had no idea that a little sea creature had hitched a ride home with me until he shot out of a rock that I was admiring on my dining table. He gave me the shock of my life and I screamed. "Eurgh there's a prawn thingy!" My partner shouted "Cool!" and the creature shot back into the stone.

I felt really bad that the poor thing had come home with me, so I filled my beachcombing box-bag with pebbles and tried to make him a nice environment to stay in until I could take him back to the beach.

I made some salt water with a very random guess of how much salt to use, 1tsp for about a cm of water in my box, and I added some sea clay that was stuck on some of the fossils that I had not washed yet. (I figured the sea clay would have minerals etc and small stuff that it can eat)

Anyway, with this done, I closed my box and he became Scrodinger's prawn until this morning when I finally managed to get some proper equipment to look after him properly.You can see him in this photo in the temporary home I made him inside my fossil box. As you can see, he is very much alive still - yay!

Beachcombing Tips - How To Beachcomb

The picture shows one of my most interesting beach combing hauls, it was all found at Folkestone beach, and includes various crystals and minerals, plenty of fossils, a lot of large and beautifully coloured sea glass, pieces of old pots, a china horse...

Half the excitement of beach combing is that you never know what you are going to find, but of course finding nothing is not fun! And has happened to me on a few occasions, before I figured out where to look. - This 'how to beachcomb guide' is a pointer of places to look for certain objects based on my own experiences of beachcombing.

Stuff can be found all over the beach, but the areas mentioned in my beachcobing tips should yield a higher concentration of finds. The pictures are all objects that I have found whilst beachcombing.

Kent Beachcombing Guide - Reculver East Towards Birchington

Reculver is a great place to go for a bit of beach combing, or indeed some beach photography, as there are many interesting and battered groynes and sea defenses to snap.

The Reculver towers, which sit at the top of the clay cliffs are another great subject to photograph, and a good place to sit down for a packed lunch. As you head east the cliffs recede and there is a small coastal path and sea wall surrounded by countryside.

People are friendly but not overly talkative. There are lots of dog walkers and cyclists on the coastal path, and in the summer a lot of holiday makers from the caravan park.

Type of Beach: The beach is shingle at high tide, with patches of sand, and a muddy rocky shore at low tide. There are sea defenses made from boulders, and groynes on the beach. These sea defenses are great places to look for interesting bits, from shells to driftwood, to fossils. As these are trapped and seem to stay relatively intact in these areas.

Kent Beachcombing Guide - Westgate-on-Sea

Type of Beach: Westgate-on-Sea is a sandy beach, surrounded by a promenade. There are rock pools at low tide, and the bay gets more than it's fair share of seaweed washing up on the beach. This seaweed is cleared in the summer, but in winter it can be found covering the shore along with other flotsam and jetsam. 

Westgate-on-Sea is quite a busy little beach, it is popular with retirees and if they spot you beach combing they seem to home in on you. They can range from being friendly and quizzical "excuse me what are you looking for?", to somewhat rude to you, if you do something that they think is unusual (like taking a photo of a seagull for example!:0) "Ooooh, somebody likes taking pictures!" Honestly I have never heard such rudeness from retirees. Lol ;) 

Kent Beachcombing Guide - Copt Point Folkestone

Copt Point at Folkestone is one of the best places in the UK to go beach combing in my opinion. You can find all sorts of things.

It's not for the feint hearted though, Copt Point can be dangerous if you get trapped by the tide, so make sure to go when the tide is going out. You can escape if you ever get caught there, but it involves climbing crumbling clay cliffs, with huge boulders underneath them which is dangerous also!

The people on the beach are mostly friendly, eager to share their fossil finds, or to give advice on where to find them.

Type of Beach: The beach is made up of large boulders which sit on a bed of clay and gravel. There is a shingle and clay beach at low tide, with the boulders being close to the cliffs.

It is a designated SSI, so no digging in the cliffs, or digging fossils out of the ground

How To Find Sea Glass

One of the things I like to do is go hunting for sea glass and interesting stones on the beach, I mainly use the pretty pieces of sea glass to make jewelry (you can see one of my sea glass pendants in the picture to the left).

Lately I have had to really hone my sea glass finding skills. I had read that finding sea glass had become harder and harder, as it takes such a long time for the glass to be formed by the sea. At first I was disbelieving, but I have to admit that lately it has become much less frequent to see it lying around.

You can still find it though it you look in the right places. - Certain types of beach are better for finding sea glass, which I will cover below. But even on the right type of beach, you could be looking in the wrong place and not find any sea glass, so I will also give advice on where to look on each beach.

Found Some Amber on the Beach :)

Yay! I managed to find two pieces of amber the other day, just lying there on the beach. I was not looking for amber at the time, just shells and stuff, I picked up the piece of amber because it looked like a yellow colored quartz pebble, but when I lifted it up it felt really light. I was not expecting this, for a moment I actually thought it was a piece of sucked toffee and screamed, lol! Then I realised it could be amber and put it in my bag to look at later.

The next piece that I found, I actually thought was a bit of plastic. It is not a rough piece, it's ready cut and looks like it has come out of some jewellery and got broken up a bit by the sea. This one has a lot of sparkling 'fish scales' inside it, which looked like flecks of gold when I saw it on the beach.

Latest Pebble And Sea Glass Finds - From Herne Bay East Beach

Quite a lot of sea glass picked up from the beach at Herne Bay to Beltinge. All of this was hiding in the shingle bank, which sits above a strip of sand.

I found some yellow, aqua blue, and one brown piece amongst the usual greens and whites. I also found a large piece of olive green coloured beach glass, which when dry looks like a regular stone.

This one has been frosted a lot more than the others, and is much thicker, so I guess that piece is probably much older and has had a lot more battering from the sea. You can see it at the front of this picture of the sea glass I found at Herne Bay.

Kent Beachcombing Guide - Herne Bay Beach (East to Beltinge)

Kent Beachcombing Guide - Herne Bay East to Beltinge.

Type of Beach: Herne Bay East Beach is a mixed shingle beach, mainly of flint pebbles and gravel, with large areas of sand and clay as the tide goes out. When the tide is out (especially towards Beltinge) there are mussel beds, rock pools, and large rocks which trap fossils and other interesting things.

The beach has wooden groynes, and boulders, which make up the sea defenses. There are gentle, grassy slopes down to the promenade until you get to Beltinge creek, where the clay cliffs rise up. (and fall down! so be careful)

Beltinge is a very beautiful beach, with a view of the Reculver towers. There is a lot of  nature living in the cliffs and the surrounding countryside. There are rock pools at low tide at Beltinge, with a variety of sea creatures, and different sea weeds to observe.

It is a popular beach for dog walking, and sea fishing, and the people are friendly and chatty. There is car parking on top of the cliffs at Beltinge, which is free, and also along Herne Bay Slopes.

Beachcombing in Rivers and Streams - Free Fun For Kids And Adults

Stream and river combing are nice free activities that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. People typically look for objects on beaches, but rivers and streams can contain a wide variety of beautiful and interesting finds.

Of course safety is key so be very careful when poking around, check for mud, tides (if a tidal river), slippery banks, and other dangers. I would advise going with another person and taking a mobile phone just in case.

Take something to clean your hands with too, like anti bacterial gel. Rivers, river banks, and streams, can harbour Weil's disease (from rats urine) it is best not to enter any river or get covered in riverbank mud if you have cuts or scratches (as this is how the disease enters the body). Faster flowing streams are safest where Weil's disease is concerned.

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

Crystals And Minerals Found At Folkestone

This is the first in a series looking at local crystals and minerals. I intend to write about all the minerals that I have found in a certain area, as there is not much information online about where to actually find crystals and minerals in Kent, or which ones can be found. (For any sea glass, sea pottery, and shell enthusiasts, I will also be doing some more general beach combing guides for my local beaches, with information on what can be found in each place.)

These particular mineral examples were found at Copt Point, Folkestone, Kent. Copt point is very well known for it's amazing fossils, and is a great spot for anyone interested in minerals and geology. The beach is full of huge boulders, with clay cliffs. The boulders are great for trapping various bits and pieces that have fallen out of the cliffs or been washed up, and Copt Point is one of THE best beaches for beach combing IMO.

Beachcombing For Sea Glass At Hampton-on-Sea's Lost Village

This beautiful sea glass was collected last month on Hampton beach, where there once stood a number of buildings, that were unfortunately taken by the sea, or demolished. (more about that later...)

when we got there the tide was quite far in, but we still managed to find all of these lovely pieces. The majority of the sea glass there was small but perfectly tumbled by the waves with no imperfections.

We even managed to find these pieces of beautiful and quite rare, yellow and red sea glass. I have never found red sea glass before and hardly ever any yellow.

5 Ways To Display Beachcombing Finds

What to do With Beachcombing Finds

It is always exciting to come back from the beach laden with treasure, but what to do with it once home can be a challenge. I curse when I think of all of the beautiful finds that I have lost over the years, because I know if I was a bit more organised I would still have them with me.

 My main problem used to be that I would use the items I had found to dress the tops of my flower pots. This looks lovely, but unfortunately small finds can work their way down into the soil with watering, and disappear from sight and mind. I have lost a lot of fossils and minerals that way. When it came to changing the soil I used to just throw it away, going through all your old plant pot soil to find pieces of china, small minerals, and such is not much fun.

Nowadays I try to think of interesting ways to display my beachcombing and nature finds, this could be making them into a home decor item, a gift, jewelry, or just finding a nice way to organise and display my collection.

My Beachcombing, Mudlarking, Field Walking Pinterest Board Is Up!

I have started a few Pinterest boards to document my finds, and nature photography,  it's like my virtual display cabinet and I love the way I can embed my board from pinterest onto a blog. I will be adding them all to this blog, in seperate posts, all under the label; My Virtual Display Cabinet.

This is my first board which is going to contain all my finds from field walking, mudlarking, and beachcombing. I will also have separate boards for certain items, like minerals, sea glass, and nature finds.

  Follow Stylishimo's board My Treasures - Field Walking, Mudlarking, And Beach Combing on Pinterest.

Creating Jewlery From Beach Finds And Other Found Objects

One of the nature crafts I most love to do is to create jewelry out of my beach and river combing finds. You will be surprised at how many cute things can be found and made into pendants and charms.

I like to use old fashioned wire wrapping techniques as this gives the piece a rustic and natural feel, but things can be mounted in a host of other materials and ways. I will be giving some tutorials to show how to mount sea glass and other found objects later on in this blog.

Today I will focus on wire wrapping; some of the things I like to use for wire wrap pendants are..

old pottery - the more patterned and colorful the better, make sure it has no rough edges..