Branscombe Beach, located on the Jurassic Coast in East Devon, is a shingle and pebble beach backed by rolling cliffs and meadows, offering diverse habitats for wildlife. Its combination of coastal, marine, and terrestrial environments makes it an important site for biodiversity.
The shifting pebbles and shingle provide a habitat for specialist plants like sea kale, yellow horned-poppy, and thrift, which are adapted to the harsh, saline conditions. The limestone and sandstone cliffs support rare mosses, lichens, and cliff-dwelling plants. They also offer nesting sites for birds. Behind the beach, wildflower meadows bloom in summer, supporting a range of invertebrates and small mammals. These grasslands are rich in species like orchids and common vetch. Intertidal zones are teeming with marine biodiversity, acting as nurseries for various marine species.
By car – Branscombe village is signposted from the A3052.
The extremely rare scaly cricket is found on the shingle beach. Until the late 1990s, it was thought to only be present in the coastal shingle habitat of Chesil Beach in Dorset – but is now known from 3 sites in England and Wales: Chesil Fleet Lagoon in Dorset, Branscombe beach in Devon and Marloes Sands in Pembrokeshire. The species was recorded in Devon around 1998, and lives in shingle along the seaweed strandline.
