Lulworth

Once called Lulvorde it became Loloworde in the Domesday Book and Lulleworth in 1199. It was The enclosure belonging to Lulla.

East Lulworth on a foggy dawn.
Picture taken from offshore looking in through the cove entrance.

Lulworth is known as a beauty spot, a freak of geology and it has the distinction of having a rare butterfly The Lulworth Skipper named after it. East Lulworth and Lulworth Castle are tucked away from sea winds behind Bindon Hill, it is West Lulworth and Lulworth cove that are better known.

The circular cove was formed when the sea broke through a narrow band of hard limestone into an area of softer chalk. Warbarrow Bay, Durdle Door and the Stair Hole are nearby places where different stages in the process may be seen.

The Lulworth Crumple is a severe distortion in the chalk strata that remains from the process that built the Purbeck Ridge. The same process built the Alps and the Pyrenees. As the tectonic plates carrying Africa and Europe met below what is now the Mediterranean Sea the surface of the earth crumpled. Twenty million years ago Purbeck must have been a place of frequent earthquakes.

Stay at The Priory Hotel when you visit Lulworth
Next: Redcliffe
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