Morte Bay

Last updated April 25, 2019

Map showing the location of Morte Bay within Devon

Morte Bay is a bay on the northwest coast of Devon in southwest England. It stretches from Whiting Hole about 500m north of Baggy Point in the south to Morte Point in the north. At the back of the bay is a long stretch of beach known as Woolacombe Sand though that southern section of the beach which is in the parish of Georgeham is known as Putsborough Sand. The village of Woolacombe is at the northeastern corner of the bay. To its south are the hills of Woolacombe Down and Pickwell Down which provide an eastern backdrop to the beach and the wider bay. The South West Coast Path and Tarka Trail follow the coast around the bay.^[1] The cliffs on the northern side of the bay are formed from the Morte Slates whilst those on the southern side are formed from the Upcott Slates. Underlying the bay itself and forming the higher ground to its east are the Pickwell Down Sandstones.^[2]

A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a type of smaller bay with a circular inlet and narrow entrance. A fjord is a particularly steep bay shaped by glacial activity.

Devon, also known as Devonshire, which was formerly its common and official name, is a county of England, reaching from the Bristol Channel in the north to the English Channel in the south. It is part of South West England, bounded by Cornwall to the west, Somerset to the north east, and Dorset to the east. The city of Exeter is the county town. The county includes the districts of East Devon, Mid Devon, North Devon, South Hams, Teignbridge, Torridge, and West Devon. Plymouth and Torbay are each geographically part of Devon, but are administered as unitary authorities. Combined as a ceremonial county, Devon's area is 6,707 km² and its population is about 1.1 million.

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

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St Brides Bay is a bay in western Pembrokeshire, West Wales.

Mount's Bay is a large, sweeping bay on the English Channel coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom, stretching from the Lizard Point to Gwennap Head. In the north of the bay, near Marazion, is St Michael's Mount; the origin of name of the bay. Though it looks to summer visitors like a large, benign, scenic, natural harbour, in an onshore winter gale it presents a great danger to shipping and a "maritime trap", especially for sailing ships. There are more than 150 known wrecks from the nineteenth century in the area. The eastern side of the bay centred around Marazion and St Michael's Mount was designated as a Marine Conservation Zone in January 2016.

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Woolacombe is a seaside resort on the coast of North Devon, England, which lies at the mouth of a valley in the parish of Mortehoe. The beach is 3 miles (4.8 km) long, sandy, gently sloping and faces the Atlantic Ocean near the western limit of the Bristol Channel.

Mortehoe is a village and former manor on the north coast of Devon, England. It lies 10 miles north-west of Barnstaple, near Woolacombe and Lee Bay, and is sited in a valley within the hilly sand-dune-like land behind Morte Point. The parish population at the 2011 census was 1,637.

Lee Bay or just Lee is a small village on the North Devon coast near Woolacombe. Lee is situated on the rugged and inhospitable stretch of coast between Ilfracombe and Woolacombe, which includes Bull Point and Morte Point, both notorious for shipwrecks in earlier times, and both on the South West Coast Path.

Carboniferous Limestone is a collective term for the succession of limestones occurring widely throughout Great Britain and Ireland that were deposited during the Dinantian Epoch of the Carboniferous Period. These rocks formed between 363 and 325 million years ago. Within England and Wales, the entire limestone succession, which includes subordinate mudstones and some thin sandstones, is known as the Carboniferous Limestone Supergroup.

Putsborough is a hamlet in Georgeham civil parish on the west-facing coast of North Devon, England. It is about ³⁄₄ mile (1.2 km) north of the village of Croyde and 1 mile (1.6 km) WNW of the village of Georgeham. 0.5 miles (0.8 km)North of the hamlet is Putsborough Sand, which forms the southern part of the two-mile-long (3 km) beach of Woolacombe Sand on Morte Bay.

The North Devon Coast was designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in September 1959. The AONB contributes to a family of protected landscapes in the Southwest of England and a total of 38% of the region is classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as Category V Protected Landscapes. The twelve Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty extend to 30% of the region, twice the proportion covered by AONBs in England as a whole and a further two National Parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor, cover an addition 7%. The North Devon Coast AONB covers 171 square kilometres (66 sq mi) of mainly coastal landscape from the border of Exmoor National Park at Combe Martin, through the mouth of the Taw & Torridge Estuary to the Cornish border at Marsland Mouth. The dune system at Braunton Burrows forms the core area of North Devon's Biosphere Reserve, the first "new style" Unesco-designated reserve in the United Kingdom. The whole of the AONB is within the Reserve boundaries.

Morte Point is a peninsula on the north west coast of Devon, England, belonging to the National Trust. To the east is the village of Mortehoe and to the south is the seaside resort of Woolacombe.

The Bay of Isles is a bay 9 miles (14 km) wide and receding 3 miles (5 km), lying between Cape Buller and Cape Wilson along the north coast of South Georgia. It was discovered in 1775 by a British expedition under James Cook and so named by him because numerous islands lie in the bay. Of South Georgia's 31 breeding bird species, 17 are found here.

Bull Point Lighthouse is a lighthouse on Bull Point, about one mile (1.6 km) north of the village of Mortehoe, on the northern coast of Devon, England. The lighthouse provides a visual aid to the villages of Mortehoe, Woolacombe and Ilfracombe, and warns of the inhospitable and rocky coast that lines the area.

Bideford Bay, also known as Barnstaple Bay and often shown on maps as Barnstaple or Bideford Bay, is a large area of water on the northwest coast of Devon in South West England, at the southwestern end of the Bristol Channel where it joins the Celtic Sea. The bay extends from Hartland Point in the southwest to Morte Point in the northeast, a distance of 14 miles (23 km), and is partly sheltered by the island of Lundy, 12 miles (19 km) offshore. It takes its alternative names from the towns of Bideford and Barnstaple, located respectively on the rivers Torridge and Taw which flow into the bay. The alternative spelling Barnstable Bay, in use long after that spelling became obsolete for the town, is also sometimes seen.

The geology of Tyne and Wear in northeast England largely consists of a suite of sedimentary rocks dating from the Carboniferous and Permian periods into which were intruded igneous dykes during the later Palaeogene Period.

The Exmoor Group is a late Devonian to early Carboniferous lithostratigraphic group in southwest England whose outcrop extends from Croyde in north Devon east across Exmoor to Minehead in west Somerset. The group comprises the following formations the:

The geology of Northumberland in northeast England includes a mix of sedimentary, intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks from the Palaeozoic and Cenozoic eras. Devonian age volcanic rocks and a granite pluton form the Cheviot massif. The geology of the rest of the county is characterised largely by a thick sequence of sedimentary rocks of Carboniferous age. These are intruded by both Permian and Palaeogene dykes and sills and the whole is overlain by unconsolidated sediments from the last ice age and the post-glacial period. The Whin Sill makes a significant impact on Northumberland's character and the former working of the Northumberland Coalfield significantly influenced the development of the county's economy. The county's geology contributes to a series of significant landscape features around which the Northumberland National Park was designated.

Budle Bay is a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide bay on the North Sea in Northumberland, England, between Bamburgh to the southeast and Lindisfarne to the northwest.

Pickwell is a small settlement with a converted manor house in the parish of Georgeham in North Devon, England.

References

↑ Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale Explorer mapping
↑ British Geological Survey 1977 Bideford & Lundy Island England and Wales sheet 292 & 276 Solid & Drift Geology. 1:50,000 scale geological map (Keyworth, Nottingham: British Geological Survey)

Coordinates: 51°09′40″N4°13′19″W / 51.161°N 4.222°W / 51.161; -4.222

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

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[1] Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale Explorer mapping

[2] British Geological Survey 1977 Bideford & Lundy Island England and Wales sheet 292 & 276 Solid & Drift Geology. 1:50,000 scale geological map (Keyworth, Nottingham: British Geological Survey)