A Walk on the Coast...

Sunday i drove east down to Dunbar and went a walk along the coast at Barnes Ness,
A beach i visited a lot when i lived for about 6 years in the nearby Town of Dunbar.
Before that we visited with Parents often and during School Holidays when out with my Dad working when he was County Ranger.
It is famous for its Geology and has a Geology Trail with information boards that to be fair are overdue for replacement as barely readable now.
The Area near here and to the East at Dunglass has been linked to Edinburgh's famous Geologist James Hutton who is regarded as the Founder of Modern Geology...
Its a place of interest for the experienced Geologist and visitor with an interest, has a variety of beaches within a mile and reefs offshore, a secret surf spot and of course its Light House is a famous landmark of East Lothians coast,
Was a bit overcast but i was today going to be looking mostly on the rocks under my feet...
Arriving on the East side of Dunbar Links Golf Course is Whitesands,
The whiteness of the fine sand here gives the place its name...

The view here is from a track up to the top of an old Lime Kiln, where nearby is an interesting stone entrance/shelter,
The rear wall looks original and being south facing i don't think it is a larder of some kind...any ideas?

The Lime Kiln here has been fenced off as deemed unsafe...

Behind the kiln a track leads to the abandoned cottage that was once home to the County Ranger here, Victor, which we visited with our Dad, now purchased by the Cement Works as its Quarry has slowly moved eastwards closer to the coast swallowing up fields to its south,
It lies empty,sad as once a lovely place to have lived...


Down below the old kiln is the quarry from where the limestone was dug which would be layered in the kiln between coal and a fire would burn to produce lime,
a water wheel here in the picture used to open a large pipe of fresh water from an underground water table which must have been dug into when quarrying,
sadly it doesn't anymore,it was nice on a hot day as kids...

Continue along above the coast and into Barnes Ness car park and Links,
gone is the Caravan & Camping Park also purchased by the Cement works and the Park is now sited West of here beside the Golf Course,
A short walk over the Links which is a raised beach covered by fine Bent and Fescue grassland,
what a lot of the East coast would have looked liked if not developed or had Golf Courses been built...
And here you cant miss the Lighthouse...

Built in 2.5 years it operated from 1901 - 2005.
It is 37 meters tall and when operational its light had a range of 16KM in clear weather.

The stone work of these buildings is remarkable in there strenght,the stone was brought from a Quarry near Crammond and Barnton Quarry in Edinburgh.
Barnton Quarry on Corstorphine Hill is of course where the infamous abandoned cold war Sector Operations Nuclear Bunker was built after being the RAF Turnhouse HQ during WW2 after the Quarry closed in the 1920`s.
The Lighthouse was machine Gunned during WW2 but remained undamaged.
The coast continues here along to Torness Nuclear Power Station but i came to have a wander on the rocks here at low tide...
A bit of beach combing along the tideline and i found this complete Sea Urchin...

Another for the collection at home,best leave them outside a while though as they do smell for a few weeks!.
The rocks out here are a bit slippy but a good explore...

The Dunbar Lifeboat,which is moored East of here at Torness sped by,
Probably on a training exercise...

under rock shelves and the rock pools there is lots of places to look for crabs and other wildlife,

back below the coastline near the old Lime Kiln and you can see the limestone here,behind is a pebble beach, lovely rounded pebbles from years of waves washing them up and down the beach,

The Grey Limestone slabs are some of the youngest rock in the UK,
The oldest being the Gneiss Rock i have walked and cycled over on The Isle of Harris
behind you can see the holes from Tree`s where once this area was woodland...


Looking closer and the orange colour older Limestone is covered with coral fossils...

Which give it`s nickname of `Macaroni` or `Spaghetti` Limestone...

Above in the small cliff is a Coal seam...

Coal is created from dead trees and plants,wood,leaves and bark accumulating over many years, the soil though above contains Marine Fossils so the area was at a later time covered again by the Sea.
Below the Kiln are the remains of a pier...

and around about are mooring rings...



Most of the Lime produced was taken by horse and Cart to Berwickshire.Some was taken by small sailing boats to Aberdeen. The Kilns closed in 1921 during a Miners Srike after producing Lime since the 18th Century...

Time for some recent Geology...
Walking along to Whitesands Beach and in the Sea Wall a brick from a famous brick works which closed in the late 1980`s in an area of Edinburgh which once had a bit of a reputation..One hard tough brick!

Onto Whitesands and recent storms had washed out some stone rubble from the Coastal Defence, a brick from Whitehill Brick works in Mid Lothian, where my friend Andrew stays,we Pass the remains of this long gone Brick works on a trail when riding there,

And then i found this Brick, made here in East Lothian near Prestonpans,this one is going home to sit in the garden...

White Sands to Barnes Ness is a great little corner of the East Lothian coastline,
All this in about a Half Mile,Hopefully new signs will be installed as already on most of the coast now or maybe the Lime Kiln made safe as its part of our heritage,