Places on the Triassic Coast.
Picture Galleries.
Places on the Jurassic Coast.
Picture Galleries.
Places on the Cretaceous Coast.
Picture Galleries.
Old Harry Rocks near Swanage – Dorset.
The Chalk stacks and arches of the Old Harry Rocks have been eroded from the cliffs by the sea and mark the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Looking at the No Man's land, a large chalk stack or island. The gap in between the cliffs and No Man's land is St. Lucas Leap.
The cliffs of Handfast Point are on the left with St. Lucas leap and No Man's land in the centre and Old Harry’s Rock on the right.
Looking west towards two stacks, the nearest is the Turf Rickrock, Haystack or Wedge the furthest away is the Pinnacle.
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The large chalk stack of No Man's land which already has arches through formed by the sea and will eventually be eroded into stacks.
Looking South West towards the two rocks known as No Man's land and St. Lucas leap gap.
The large chalk stack of No Man's land showing an arch through and the Old Harry Rock.
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Old Harry, is a medieval name for Satan and according to legend the Devil is supposed to have slept on the rock. The land on the cliff top opposite is called Old Nick’s Ground.
Another possible source of the name is that the rocks were named after a famous Poole a privateer and smuggler, Harry Paye, who used to hide his contraband nearby.
The gap between No Man’s Land and the mainland is known as "St Lucas Leap". It is where a pair of pedigree greyhounds belonging to a squire at Studland, while coursing a hare, are said to have leaped clean over the cliff and have been dashed to pieces.
The Old Harry rocks are a group of chalk stacks which were at one time part of a chalk seam that stretched from Purbeck to the Isle of Wight.
The headland of Handfast Point is vulnerable to erosion by the sea with the tidal surge wearing away at cracks in the chalk joints from both sides, slowly creating a cave.
The sea continues to erode the cave into an arch which then collapses to leave stacks. Old Harry, No Man's Land and the gap of St Lucas's Leap were formed by this process.
In the 1770's, people could still walk from the headland of Handfast Point to Old Harry. Old Harry's wife was a stack of similar size until her eventual collapse in 1896 leaving the stump we see today.