Rory Walsh revisits Folkestone to explore the prehistoric Kent coast where dinosaurs last roamed
West of the famous White Cliffs of Dover, Kent’s coastline includes another remarkable landscape. Near the village of Capel-le-Ferne, I’m standing by a clifftop overlooking a curving bay. To the right is Folkestone. The dark line of the Harbour Arm scoops towards the English Channel.
On the left is a bright chalk headland, Abbot’s Cliff. Ferries at Dover Harbour waft out from behind it, gliding like glaciers. Beyond the horizon, out of sight but just 48 kilometres away, is France.
In the foreground lies Folkestone Warren, a hummocky mass of green. From above, it looks almost tropical. The dense canopy of trees evokes images of rainforests.
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A nature reserve and site of special scientific interest, Folkestone Warren shelters more than 150 species of plant. ‘It has its own microclimate,’ says geologist Steve Friedrich. ‘Things thrive there that shouldn’t. For example, there have been sightings of Cetti’s warbler, normally a Mediterranean bird.
The biodiversity is second to none.’ Friedrich has lived in Folkestone for 30 years and explored the town’s geology for more than 50. He’s also an ambassador for the Transmanche Cross- Channel Geopark. ‘Folkestone is an internationally important geological site,’ he tells me. ‘The cliffs are renowned for fossils. They also provide two geology type sections, the Folkestone Beds and Albian Gault Clay. Geologists worldwide use them as standard references.’
Today, Folkestone Warren looks wild and undeveloped. Yet there are clues to past human activity. A railway track sweeps below. ‘That’s the main line between Dover and London,’ confirms Friedrich. In the Edwardian era, Folkestone Warren was a popular beauty spot with its own railway station, Warren Halt. Crowds of day-trippers disembarked to enjoy ornamental gardens, ponds, a tearoom and a children’s playground. All these visitor attractions have long departed, due to the ground beneath our feet.
‘The Warren is an active rotational landslip,’ Friedrich summarises. ‘The chalk cliffs lie on top of layers of clay. The sea erodes the clay at the base, which makes the chalk above collapse.
Furthermore, chalk is permeable. Rain passes through it until it meets the impermeable clays. In very wet weather, water collects between the rocks, which lubricates their surfaces. Heavy waterlogged chalk pushes the clay forwards. In turn, the chalk tips back.’
Since 1765, at least 12 major landslips have shaped Folkestone Warren’s jumbled scenery. On 19 December 1915, about 1.5 million cubic metres of chalk buried the railway, narrowly missing a late-running train. Another landslip in 1939 closed Warren Halt. Friedrich highlights where it stood. He also encourages me to peer at the nearby foliage. ‘The tearoom made cakes, so the kitchen used all sorts of fruit. Some discarded seeds have germinated. There are now wild apples, cherries, even a fig tree, growing in the Warren.’
Along with these recent settlers, Folkestone’s evolving coast reveals much older residents. From Capel-le-Ferne, we drive into the town and park overlooking Sunny Sands beach. It’s a bright morning with a gentle breeze that ruffles our jackets. At the end of the promenade, we go onto the foreshore besides Baker’s Gap. Folkestone folklore says it was named after a customs official who was killed by smugglers.
Ahead lies a carpet of scattered grey rocks, some as big as cows. With a local’s familiarity, Friedrich starts striding across them.
‘The trick is to look two or three ahead and keep moving,’ he says. We rock-hop for a few minutes then pause beside the undulating Folkestone Beds.
The cliffs are early Cretaceous, formed 120–90 million years ago. With our backs to the hissing waves, Friedrich points to a grey-blue stripe of Gault Clay sitting between brownish green sands. Though sedimentary, the layers aren’t horizontal. An anticline gradually drops the clay band to sea level.
As we follow its descent, Friedrich reveals more of Folkestone’s prehistoric past. We’re standing on a pale plateau of rock with a rounded depression in the surface. ‘Here’s an ankylosaur footprint,’ he announces. ‘Ankylosaurs were quadruped dinosaurs covered in bony armour, a bit like a tank with four legs.’
As I step back to take a photo, my right heel nestles into a hollow. Another ankylosaur footprint. Standing where a dinosaur once trod feels truly startling.
‘From the stride we’ve worked out that this dinosaur was about the size of my car,’ says Friedrich. It wasn’t alone. In 2011, Friedrich’s friend and fellow geologist Philip Hadland, curator at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, found a dinosaur print nearby while searching for fossils. ‘Then in September 2017, I spotted one while walking my dog.’ Since then, Friedrich and his colleagues – Hadland, Simon Jackson (curator at Ipswich Museums) and Abelouahed Lagnaoui (associate professor at Hassan 1st University in Morocco) – have uncovered many more.
‘We’ve found prints of 11 different dinosaur types, from small theropods to big sauropods. There are single ones and complete trackways.’ On a pockmarked boulder is a three-toed print shaped like a huge bird’s foot. ‘It’s an iguanodon type – a two-legged ornithopod.’ Friedrich shows me where the dinosaur’s heel sank, a sign that the ground was wet. ‘You can picture it walking along, using drier bits of land like stepping stones. These prints could so easily have been washed away.’
They have survived due to Folkestone’s geology. ‘In the Cretaceous Period this land was at the edge of the Rhine– Bohemia Massif. Folkestone’s latitude was roughly where Sardinia is now,’ Friedrich explains. ‘The environment was mostly arid plain, with seasonal streams and lakes. Long, dry periods allowed footprints to harden in the
sun.’ Dated to 110 million years ago, Folkestone’s dinosaur footprints were the last ones ever left in Britain.
The tide is coming in as we reach the headland of Copt Point. Below its cone-like summit, the Gault Clay meets the shoreline in billows of sticky-looking heaps. Friedrich says that local fishermen called it ‘the blue slipper’. ‘The clay is excellent for preserving fossils, especially ammonites,’ he continues. ‘Ammonites evolved over time and whole genera are found here in sequence.’ From ammonite shells to dinosaur footprints, Folkestone’s eroding coastline reveals evidence of prehistoric creatures great and small.
We return along the foreshore then head into town to visit Folkestone Museum. Coralie Clover, the curator, kindly shows us around. The first dinosaur prints that Friedrich and Hadland discovered are on display beside fossilised fish, reptiles, deer antlers, mammoth teeth and a hippo’s tibia.
These abundant and diverse finds remind me of the unusual birds and plants thriving today at Folkestone Warren. The Warren and the beach at Baker’s Gap both record the transience of time. Landslips and footprints alike are events of mere seconds that unveil millions of years.
Back on the promenade, Friedrich and I peer over the railings. Dappling the Sunny Sands beach are a set of sandal prints, a modern mirror of the ankylosaur trackway. In a few hours, incoming waves will cover them up.
Friedrich says, ‘When I give talks at local schools or shows, I always tell kids, “Go and make some footprints next time you’re on the beach. That sand has been washed out of cliffs where dinosaurs walked. So, you’ll be walking on sand walked on by dinosaurs.” It always blows their minds.’
