Slapton Sands
On top of being an extremely picturesque and popular beach, Slapton Sands is also very popular to those who enjoy preserving nature with the nature reserve. Slapton Sands is a 3 mile long pebble beach with plenty of space and is worth visiting for the wonderful scenery.
The beach is great for kayaking, paddle boarding as well as bathing in South Devon's Mediterranean summer climate. The beach is easy to access from the car park and has all the essentials you need at one end.
Slapton Sands Torcross And Slapton Ley South Hams Devon
Torcross is a village in the South Hams district of Devon in England. It stands at the southern end of Slapton Sands, a narrow strip of land and shingle beach which separates the freshwater lake of Slapton Ley from Start Bay and carries the A379 coastal road north to Dartmouth.
Slapton Sands, was in 1944 part of the site of the ill-fated Exercise Tiger. A Sherman tank that was sunk in this action has been recovered and now stands on the road behind the beach at nearby Torcross. Part of Exercise Fabius took place a week after Exercise Tiger on Slapton Sands. The beach itself is not sand, but consists of small smooth pebbles ranging in size from ¼ inch to several inches.
Behind Slapton Sands is Slapton Ley, a nature reserve and good example of serial or ecological succession — the process whereby open water becomes reed bed and eventually, as silt and leaf litter builds up, woodland. The beach itself is a good example of a bar: the material that makes up the beach was pushed up by the rising sea levels during the Flandrian transgression after the last glacial period (from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago). A similar process formed Chesil Beach. Beaches formed like this are reworked by coastal processes now but are not supplied by enough material to recreate them, should material be removed. This had terrible consequences nearby at Hallsands where most of the beach was removed as building material for Devonport dockyards, leaving the village exposed to storms. It was struck by a storm in 1917 and most of the village was washed away although no villagers were killed.
Further north, the beach is known as Strete Gate and at the northernmost end is Pilchard Cove. The southern end of the beach is known as Torcross Sands. A length of beach about 100 metres (110yd) south of Pilchard Cove is regularly used by naturists.
Intro Music:-
Cinematic (Sting) by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (
Artist:
Aerial video: FSC Slapton, Devon
Aerial video of Field Studies Council's Slapton Ley field centre, the Start Bay centre and Salpton Ley Nature Reserve, all on the south Devon coast.
Slapton Ley National Nature Reserve
IMG 0272
slapton sands
Slapton Ley and Slapton Sands.
Slapton Ley is a lake on the south coast of Devon, England, separated from Start Bay by a shingle beach, known as Slapton Sands.
It is the largest natural freshwater lake in South West England.
It is 1.5 miles long and is made up of two parts (the Lower Ley and the Higher Ley).
The site is a National Nature Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
In late 1943, as part of the build-up to D-day, the British Government set up a training ground at Slapton Sands, Devon, to be used by Force U, the American forces tasked with landing on Utah beach. Slapton Beach was selected for its similarity to Utah Beach: a gravel beach, followed by a strip of land and then a lake. Approximately 3,000 local residents in the area of Slapton, now South Hams District of Devon, were evacuated. Some had never left their villages before being evacuated.
Landing exercises started in December 1943. Exercise Tiger was one of the larger exercises that would take place in April and May 1944. The exercise was to last from 22 April until 30 April 1944, and covered all aspects of the invasion, culminating in a landing at the Slapton Sands beach. On board nine large tank landing ships (LSTs), the 30,000 troops prepared for their mock beach landing. The landing also included a live-firing exercise.
Exercise Tiger, or Operation Tiger, was the code name for one in a series of large-scale rehearsals for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, which took place on Slapton Sands or Slapton Beach in Devon. Coordination and communication problems resulted in friendly fire deaths during the exercise, and an Allied convoy positioning itself for the landing was attacked by E-boats of the German Kriegsmarine, resulting in the deaths of 946 American servicemen. The incident was under the strictest secrecy at the time due to the impending invasion, and was only nominally reported afterward; as a result it has been called forgotten.
Filmed with a DJI Phantom Quadcopter , GoPro Hero3 Black Camera and a cheap no brand name brushless gimbal.
Filmed at 1080p , 60fps.
Slapton Ley - Otter & Gannets Fishing
A fabulous experience during a stay at Slapton Ley FSC (Field Studies Council) seeing my first LIVE otter and watching gannets fishing in the sea. Caught some sightings and photos of local bird species too. Very happy!!
Coppicing Hazel woodland at Slapton Ley NNR to aid the Dormice population
Staff and volunteers at Slapton Ley Field Centre & National Nature Reserve carry out coppicing in a Hazel woodland on the NNR, an ancient practise now employed to aid the local population of Dormice.
Jeremy Barker, Slapton Bird Ringing Group. Slapton Ley, England.
In the summer of 2009, Nick Hand set off to cycle around the coast of the British Isles. The people he talked to along the way included artists, craftspeople and makers.
Slapton ECI Field Trip 2005
The first field trip of the ECM 2005 class of Oxford University Centre for the Environment. The trip was in Slapton, Devon, UK where we resided in a field study centre in a Nature Reserve and learned about coastal erosion and land management issues in a British nature reserve.
Slapton Village In The South Hams District Of Devon.
Slapton is a village and civil parish in the South Hams district of Devon, England. It is located near the A379 road between Kingsbridge and Dartmouth, and lies within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). In 1901 the population of the civil parish was 527, decreasing to 473 in 2001, and decreasing further to 434 at the 2011 census. The parish is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Blackawton, Strete, Stokenham and East Allington.
Slapton was recorded in the Domesday Book as Sladone. The Collegiate Chantry of St Mary was founded in 1372 or 1373 by Sir Guy de Brian. The Tower Inn and West tower remain and the tower has been designated by English Heritage as a grade I listed building. The Church of St James dates from the late 13th or early 14th century, and is also grade I listed.
The nearby beach which is technically a coastal bar (see below), known as Slapton Sands, was in 1944 part of the site of the ill-fated Exercise Tiger. A Sherman tank that was sunk in this action has been recovered and now stands on the road behind the beach at nearby Torcross. Part of Exercise Fabius took place a week after Exercise Tiger on Slapton Sands. The beach itself is not sand, but consists of small smooth pebbles ranging in size from ¼ inch to several inches.
Intro Music:-
Cinematic (Sting) by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (
Artist:
Main Music:-
Daily Beetle by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (
Source:
Artist:
Dormouse Survey Sept 2012
Chester Zoo's Act for Wildlife team tell us why doing Dormouse surveys is important
Birds of Slapton Ley Number 1
A first attempt at some ad-hoc videography of wildlife. With apologies for some of the wobbles-there was a gale blowing and it shows despite using a monopod.
The Lea Valley Walk: Hertford to Broxbourne 4 May 2018
An 8.25 mile walk along the Lea Valley Walk long distance footpath between Hertford and Broxbourne via Ware, Stanstead Abbotts, and Rye House. Some lovely riverside views on this walk which took place in gloriously sunny weather on Friday 4 May 2018.
Installing a reed screen at Slapton Ley NNR
Staff and volunteers of Slapton Ley Field Centre & National Nature Reserve installing a screen built of reeds and hazel, both harvested from the Nature Reserve itself. This screen will give visitors to Slapton Ley the chance to get a little bit closer to some of the wildlife that shelters in the reedbeds around the fringes of the Ley.
Wildlife in Devon
A trial video editing.
This video contains a series of wildlife clips that I took during the 2 years study in Plymouth. All taken in Devon, mostly in/around Plymouth, plus Dawlish Warren and Slapton.
Background music: A Velvet Affair (by Blanket Barricade)
*free music for non-commercial purposes
All video clips taken by Olympus E-M5 + 12-50mm / Panasonic 100-300mm
Slapton Sands 2016
Holiday in Slapton Sands, Devon. August 2016
Music: soundcloud.com/floppycircus
Cowgate Cemetery, Western Heights, Dover UK (Video)
Video of the Victorian Cowgate Cemetery, Dover, Kent, England (UK).
Abridged extracts from the plaque just inside the main (northern) entrance:
Dover's Cowgate Cemetery is named after the medieval gate which allowed townspeople to graze their animals on the lower slopes of the Western Heights.
The land, over two acres in extent, was donated by William Mowll and consecrated in 1835 by the Archbishop of Canterbury as an extension to the Parish churchyard.
The layout of the cemetery is attributed to Stephen Geary, the architect who designed London's Highgate Cemetery.
In 1990 the Wildlife Conservation Community Program (WCCP) discovered a small population of the Garden Dormouse (Eliomys quercinus) living in the cemetery. The Garden Dormouse is not 'officially' recorded as living in Britain.
The 'Mystery Vault' photograph (with the empty coffin) referred to in the video is at:
Cowgate Cemetery is now considered to be a nature reserve.
My science research interests (evolution and psychology, esp. the archaeotrauma) are at:
My Facebook page is at:
Dover Blog (Social Psychology):
Images of Dover:
John Latter / Jorolat
Extreme close-up of Savi's Warbler reeling in Newport Wetlands
This video shows a close-up of s Savi's Warbler reeling on a drizzly morning in Newport Wetlands reserve. Suffering from poor light but so close you can practically see its tonsils!
little shark at Swanage beach, Starry Smoothhound (Mustelus asterias)
We reported to sharktrust.org and they identified it as a Starry Smoothhound (Mustelus asterias), which is apparently quite common around the UK. sharktrust.org/id.
It seems to have an injured eye, or some desease and it obviously seems lost. Mating and gestation (these sharks produce living young, not eggs) both occurs in summer, so around the time when we saw this, so maybe it was weakend due to the stress of mating or birth? It swam back eventually, hope it's well...