White stacks
Gleaming chalk.
Ian Stewart — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Huligan0 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Lies Thru a Lens — CC BY 2.0 · Simaron from Lower Saxony, Germany — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Maxicar — CC BY-SA 3.0
Old Harry Rocks are three chalk formations, including a stack and a stump, at Handfast Point on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, southern England, about 9 km southwest of Bournemouth in a straight line. They mark the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The rocks lie just east of Studland and about 4 km northeast of Swanage. Their chalk was once part of a long band stretching between Purbeck and the Isle of Wight, which remained as a headland after much of it eroded away. The waves cut caves that became arches, whose tops collapsed to leave separate stacks, one of them Old Harry; another, Old Harry's Wife, wore away until its top fell, leaving a stump. Gleaming white chalk stacks rise from a blue-green sea, backed by towering white cliffs topped with green downland, with the Pinnacle and Little Pinnacle to the south. At sunrise the chalk turns gold and pink. Visitors walk from Studland along the Dorset section of the South West Coast Path and stand on the downs above the cliffs to take in the rocks and the sea. The cliffs are fragile, so keep well back from the edge.
Gleaming chalk.
Topped with downs.
Gold and pink.
Handfast Point, Studland, Dorset, England
On foot from Studland along the coast path.
They are fragile; keep back from the edge.