Formed by the combined forces of the sea and a river swollen by melting ice at the end of the last Ice Age. Lulworth Cove is world famous for its unique geology and landforms including the Lulworth Crumple and Stair Hole.

Lulworth Cove, Dorset, is a small, almost circular bay with a narrow opening to the sea.

Together with the adjacent cliffs and St Oswald’s, Mupe and Worbarrow Bays it is the best example in Europe of the interaction of marine erosion on an alternating sequence of hard and soft rocks.

Stair Hole is a minor landform to the west of Lulworth Cove. It has formed due to the concordant nature of the coast (geological structure runs parallel to the coast), and shows how coves (shell-shaped bays) are likely to develop in their initial stages. The rock types found in Stair Hole are the Portland Limestone, the Purbeck Beds and the Wealden Clay.

This sandtone slab from the ‘Rotsee strata’ exhibits an array of aquatic life forms which lived at the bottom of the sea bay just under 33ft deep.  These life forms fed on suspended organic matter which they filtered through their gills.

In 1872 during the course of building work on a wine cellar, Josef Wilhelm Amrein-Troller discovered a rock along with its 32 large potholes. These features were formed by the action of water and stones that fell through crevasses in the overlaying glacier.

The glacier garden was created to preserve the feature.  It is coverd by a canvas tent to protect it from the elements.