Brambles Chine
Chine on the Isle of Wight
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Brambles Chine is a chine in Colwell Bay, Isle of Wight, England notable for its geology. After years of erosion, a path down to the beach near Brambles Chine was destroyed, but rebuilt in 2023.[1]
The chine is accessible from the coastal path. A slipway is where the chine bed used to be.[2]
Name
Named from a place called Brambles on Andrew's Map of 1769, and perhaps associated with Bramblehill (1608), the origin of the name is from Lazarus Bramble, a master mariner from Yarmouth that owned the chine in 1648. The word chine is from Old English cinu (fissure, ravine).[3]
There is a self-catering holiday village and a park near the chine with the same name.[4]
Location
It is located in Colwell Bay, near the villages of Freshwater and Totland. There is a small, unnamed copse of trees surrounding the chine. In the bay, there are two other chines: Linstone Chine to the north, and Colwell Chine to the south.[5]
The geology consists of the sands and clays of the Headon Hill Formation.[6] It was one of the areas investigated in the 17th Century by Robert Hooke.[7]