Flamborough Head

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Flamborough Head

Flamborough Head is an eight mile (˜11.3 km) long promontory

Promontory

Promontory may refer to:*Promontory, a prominent mass of land which overlooks lower lying land or a body of water*Promontory, Utah, the location where the United States first Transcontinental Railroad was completed...
on the Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a Historic counties of England of northern England and the largest in Great Britain. Because of its great size, over time functions were increasingly undertaken by its subdivisions, which have been subject to History of local government in Yorkshire....
coast

Coast

The coast is defined as that part of the land adjoining or near the ocean or its saltwater arms. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the process of tides....
of England

England

Filey

Filey is a small town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. It forms part of the Scarborough and is located between Scarborough, North Yorkshire and Bridlington on the North Sea coast....
and Bridlington

Bridlington

Bridlington is a town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It has a population of over 33,000 and is twinned with Millau, France and Bad Salzuflen, Germany....
bays of the North Sea

North Sea

The North Sea is a marginal sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. The Dover Strait and the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north connect it to the Atlantic Ocean....
. It is a chalk

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. It forms under relatively deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
headland

Headlands and bays

Headlands and bays are two related features of the coastal environment....
, and the resistance it offers to coastal erosion

Coastal erosion

Coastal erosion is the wearing away of land or the removal of beach or dune sediments by wave action, Tide, wave currents, or drainage . Waves, generated by storms, wind, or fast moving motor craft, cause coastal erosion, which may take the form of long-term losses of sediment and Rock , or merely the temporary redistribution of coastal sed...
may be contrasted with the low coast of Holderness

Holderness

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Flamborough Head is an eight mile (˜11.3 km) long promontory

Promontory

Yorkshire

Coast

England

Filey

Bridlington

North Sea

Chalk

Headlands and bays

Headlands and bays are two related features of the coastal environment....
, and the resistance it offers to coastal erosion

Coastal erosion

Holderness

Holderness is an area of the East Riding of Yorkshire, on the east coast of England. An area of rich agricultural land, Holderness was marshland until it was drained in the Middle Ages....
to the south. There are larger numbers and a wider range of cave habitats at Flamborough than at any other chalk site in Britain, the largest of which are known to extend for more than 50 m from their entrance on the coast.

Flamborough Head has been designated a (SAC) by the British Government's (JNCC). (Special Areas of Conservation are strictly protected sites designated under the European Community Habitats Directive, which requires the establishment of a European network of important high-quality conservation sites in order to make a significant contribution to conserving the 189 habitat types and 788 species identified in Annexes to this Directive.)

Seabird

Seabird

Seabirds are birds that have adaptation to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behavior and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding ecological niche have resulted in similar adaptations....
s such as gannets

Northern Gannet

The Northern Gannet is a seabird and is the largest member of the gannet family, Sulidae....
and puffins

Atlantic Puffin

The Atlantic Puffin is a seabird species in the auk family . It is a pelagic bird that feeds primarily by diving for fish, but also eats other sea creatures, such as squid and crustaceans....
breed

Sexual reproduction

Sexual reproduction is characterized by processes that pass a Genetic recombination of Genetics material to offspring, resulting in Genetic diversity....
abundantly on the cliffs, and nearby Bempton Cliffs has a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is a United Kingdom charitable organisation which works to promote bird conservation and protection of birds and the wider Natural environment through public awareness campaigns, petitions and through the operation of nature reserves throughout the United Kingdom....
reserve. The shooting of seabirds at Flamborough head was condemned by Professor Alfred Newton

Alfred Newton

Alfred Newton Fellow of the Royal Society was an England zoology and ornithology.Newton was Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University from 1866 to 1907....
in his 1868 speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science

British Association for the Advancement of Science

The British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formally known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between scientific workers....
. Local MP Christopher Sykes

Christopher Sykes (MP)

Sir Christopher Sykes was a British Member of Parliament and friend of Edward VII of the United Kingdom as Prince of Wales.Christopher was the second son of Sykes family of Sledmere....
introduced the Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869

Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869

The Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It was the first act to protect wild birds in that country....
, the first Act to protect wild birds in the United Kingdom. .

Because it projects into the sea, Flamborough attracts many bird

Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
migrants

Bird migration

Bird migration refers to the regular seasonal journeys undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather....
in autumn

Autumn

Autumn is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter, usually in late September or late March when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier....
, and also has a key point for observing passing seabirds. When the wind

WIND

The Global Geospace Science WIND satellite is a NASA science spacecraft launched at 04:31:00 EST on November 1, 1994 from launch pad 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Merritt_Island%2C_Florida, Florida aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7925-10 rocket....
s are in the east

East

East is a Direction in geography. It is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points, opposite of west and at right angles to north and south....
, many birders watch for seabirds from below the lighthouse

Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a tower, building, or framework designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens or, in older times, from a fire and used as an aid to navigation and to Maritime pilot at sea....
, or later in the autumn comb the hedges and valley

Valley

In geology, a valley is a Depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge....
s for landbird migrants. Flamborough Head also has a bird observatory

Bird observatory

A bird observatory is a centre for the study of bird migration and bird populations. They are usually focused on local birds, but may also include interest in far flung areas....
. Flamborough Head is the oldest lighthouse place in Britain, dating back to 1674.

A Franco-American squadron fought the Battle of Flamborough Head

Battle of Flamborough Head

}|-||}The Battle of Flamborough Head was a small naval battle that took place on 23 September 1779, in the North Sea off the coast of Yorkshire between an American Continental Navy squadron led by John Paul Jones and the two British escort vessels protecting a large merchant convoy....
with a pair of Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British Armed Forces . From the mid-18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s....
frigates in the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , also known as the American War of Independence, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Thirteen Colonies on the North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers....
on 23 September 1779. In the engagement, USS Bonhomme Richard

USS Bonhomme Richard (1765)

The first USS Bonhomme Richard, formerly Duc de Duras, was a frigate in the Continental Navy. She was originally an East Indiaman, a merchant ship built in France for the French East India Company in 1765, for service between France and the Orient....
and Pallas, with USS Alliance
USS Alliance (1778)

The first USS Alliance of the United States Navy was a 36-gun sailing frigate of the American Revolutionary War, notable for having fired the last shot of the war....
, captured HMS Serapis

HMS Serapis (1779)

HMS Serapis was a British frigate launched by the Royal Navy in 1779. The vessel was named after the god Serapis in Greek and Ancient Egypt mythology....
and Countess of Scarborough, the best-known incident of Capt. John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones was United States first well-known US Navy fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Although he made enemies among the American ruling class, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to this day....
's naval career. The toposcope

Toposcope

A toposcope or topograph is a monument erected on hills, mountains or high places which indicates the direction, and usually the distance, to notable landscape features which can be seen with the naked eye from that point....
at the lighthouse commemorates the 180th anniversary of the battle.

Danes Dyke is a 2 mile / 3 km long ditch that runs north and south isolating the seaward 5 square miles / 13 square kilometres of the headland. The dyke and the steep cliffs make the enclosed territory and its two boat launching beaches, North and South Landings, easily defended. Despite its name, the dyke is prehistoric in origin, and Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
arrowheads were found when it was excavated by Major-General Augustus Pitt-Rivers in 1879.

It was featured on the television programme Seven Natural Wonders
Seven Natural Wonders

Seven Natural Wonders was a television series that aired on BBC Two from 3 May to 20 June 2005. The programme took a specific area of England each week and, from votes by the people living in that area, showed the 'seven natural wonders' of that area in a programme, although it is questionable how 'natural' some of the wonders were....
as one of the wonders of Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Flamborough

Flamborough is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately north east of Bridlington town centre on the prominent coastal feature of Flamborough Head....
were also the setting for the book Bill Takes the Helm (Betty Bowen

Betty Bowen

Betty Bowen , was an USA journalist and art promoter. She was born in Kent, Washington, Washington, and earned an English degree from the University of Washington....
, published 1955 by Burke Publishing Company, London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, England). Summarised, this is about an American boy's fight to save his grandmother's house from destruction by the sea, which he, his grandmother and his sister are living in. He is also desperately trying to get used to England after his mother died and she requested he be sent there in her will.

During the evening of 23 August 2006, a lightning

Lightning

File:Blesk.jpgLightning is an Earth's atmosphere discharge of electricity usually accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcano or dust storms....
bolt hit a buttress

Buttress

A buttress is an architecture structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, especially in Germany, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral forces arising out of the roof structures that lack adequate bracing....
on the cliffs, sending 100 tonnes of rock into the sea.

Flamborough Head

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