CLEVELAND WAY EARTHCACHE 8: FILEY BRIGG EarthCache
CLEVELAND WAY EARTHCACHE 8: FILEY BRIGG
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One of a series of Earthcaches that can be completed by Geocachers walking The Cleveland Way without straying far from the route.
The long narrow peninsular of Filey Brigg is one of the outstanding structural features of the north east coast. The landward end of the peninsular is known as Carr Naze and is the site of a Roman signal fort from the 4th century AD as well as being the modern end of the Cleveland Way and also the end of the 79 mile Wolds Way. The Brigg is a long neck of Jurassic limestone rock at the end of the peninsular which is largely covered at high tide.
110 to 140 million years ago the whole region of Filey Brigg was covered in a shallow tropical sea with a climate similar to the Bahamas today. With lots of sunlight filtering through the well-oxygenated water, animal and plant life flourished and oolitic limestones developed as layer upon layer of shell fragments quietly built up on the sea floor. Plesiosaurs, ammonites, sharks and fish were all fossilised in these strata along with sea urchins, oysters, mussels and the tubes made by burrowing shrimps.
During the last 2 million years the bedrock of Filey Brigg was covered by ice sheets up to a kilometre thick. As these glaciers ground their way across, they picked up rocks and rock flour and left this material behind as ground-up mush of rock, called boulder clay, when they finally melted. It is the boulder clay layer which overlies the Jurassic bedrock and forms the top parts of the cliffs of Filey Bay and Carr Naze on which you are standing.
The entire structure of Filey Brigg with the wide sweep of Filey Bay to the south owes it’s existence to a geological fault which runs in a NW / SE direction. The rock on the south side of the fault has slipped down so the overlying soft boulder clay is at or below sea level and is exposed to wave action. To the north, the harder limestone bedrock is at sea level and this juts out to form the Brigg, while to the south the sea has eroded the soft clay to form Filey Bay.
The clay cliffs of the Carr Naze are still eroding quite rapidly, due to rainfall as well as wave action and large landslips have been witnessed. One such slip in 1869 took away several hundred metres at the end of the Naze and and was heard 7 miles out to sea.
The north side of Carr Naze has been eroded by the sea into a number of small bays. One of the notice boards nearby explains how these have been formed from caves in soft sections of the cliffs, which have then collapsed due to wave action. Where Filey beach meets the Brigg, the towering cliffs feature steep, deep gullies in the boulder clay, which have formed as a result of relatively recent erosion in sediments which have not yet had time to harden into rock. This is one of the best examples in Britain of the sort of “Badlands” scenery made famous in wild west cowboy movies.
To log the Earthcache you will need to e mail me to say:-
1) approximately how wide Carr Naze is at the moment at the site of the Roman signal fort. You have to pace this out yourself or use a gps to estimate it.
2) how wide it was when the fort was built & the percentage that has been eroded and
3) the unusual name given to the many small bays on the north side of Carr Naze.
Of course it would be nice if you post a photo of yourself, maybe gps in hand, with the Brigg or the end of the Cleveland Way in the background but this is now an optional requirment. You can also log your find at the same time as e mailing me the answers and I will get back to you if there are any errors or problems.
BE CAREFUL as you pace across Carr Naze to estimate its width and do not go too near the cliff edge as the cliffs are constantly eroding and may be overhung.
The part of the answer to (2) can be found on a display board at the site of the Roman fort at N54.13.084', W000.16.411' and there is a set of 3 display boards at N 54 13.079’ W 000 16.668’ which could also be useful in answering one of the questions.
Apparently the figures on the display boards about the signal fort are difficult to use now as someone has scratched out the unit of measurement next to each number so it now says "200 [blank]" but these units are metres! Anyone who has walked the whole of the Cleveland Way and completed all the Earthcaches on their trip can e mail all their answers and brief details of their walk in one e mail and I will be happy to record their names of the "ROLL OF HONOUR" below:-
~~~ Roll of Honour ~~~
CONGRATULATIONS TO..........
"Whistle Blowers" - Nick and Sue - First to Complete the Earthcache series in a day trips between 18 October & 5 December 2008)
And also Congratulations to
First to Complete the Series during a Continuous Walk of the Cleveland Way:-
"connie159" - a 62 & 57 year old pair of backpackers who completed the route in 7.5 days between 21st and 27th July 2010)
Also "Dafad" (aka Fran & Paul and Tammy the Dog) who were the 2nd geocache team to complete the whole route. They did an anticlockwise circuit between 6th & 14th June 2011.
And "No-walk-too-far" and "flatland walker" (from Germany) completed the Cleveland Way and all 8 of my Earthcaches ending up at Filey in September 2017.
During the COVID pandemic Lyndellsami completed the Cleveland Way in 8 stages between 24th April & 16th August 2021 and completed all 8 of the earthcaches between 21/8/2019 & 12/12/21.
And in May 2023 Naddlypie & Stretchy123 completed The Cleveland Way, doing most of it in 10 / 11 mile stages, and completed all 8 earthcaches on the way 
Well done all
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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