For a sandy beach you need a good source of rocks that can be broken down into sand by erosion. Brighton does not have a good source of rocks that can be broken down into sand by erosion. Much of the coast of South-East England is Chalk. Chalk does not break down into sand, the soft limestone crumbles, and either makes a limey mud, or dissolves.
The pebbles on Brighton beach are made from flint (a hard grey rock) deposited in the chalk cliffs adjacent to Brighton. Through natural erosion the flints are released from the cliffs and slowly make their way through natural process to Brighton where the groynes are in place to “capture” the pebbles. The groynes mean that the pebbles collect into the shores, so instead of limey mud, we have a pebble beach which is much more suitable for sunbathing on.
The beach is only 50 meters away from English Courses Brighton and our students can witness this natural process every day. you can’t exactly see anything happening because the process is to slow to be noticed. But you can always just go to the beach under the awareness of the fact it’s happening and enjoy it with this in mind. The beach is very close to the school so it won’t take a severe amount of exertion for anyone to have a visit. Beaches are a great place to be even when they don’t have sand. It’s still a fun time and you can walk around and look at things and if it’s warm enough even take a swim in the water. The pebbles go out quite far so you won’t have to deal with limey mud at any point.
