Of all the things to search for at the beach, I like pebbles best. Admittedly, this may not sound like much of a challenge. Most of the UK coastline is shingle. But, when you start to look closely, there is so much to find.
I grew up in Worthing, West Sussex, home to a large shingle beach. As kids, we learned to arch our feet to walk over stones and their bumps knobbled our spines as we lay on our towels. We did not appreciate pebbles: we suffered them, hunted for shells or fossils and longed for sand.
Then, on holiday in Cornwall last year, I found in our rented cottage an old picture guide to local pebbles. There were feldspar veins, spotted slates, serpentinite and granite ovoids – and a new world seemed to open. Now, I love pebbles so much that I have come to regard Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach as a missed opportunity. The stones hardly feature.
“Pebble hunting is what geologists do on holiday,” Clive Mitchell of the British Geological Survey says approvingly when I ask him to come along and give me some tips. We head to Cromer, Norfolk, where the shingle is predominantly flint, but where the much rarer rhomb porphyry – something of a holy grail for pebble hunters – is also hidden. A lava, rhomb porphyry is distinctive because diamond-shaped crystals are nestled in its dark-brown rock. The stone, which comes from Norway, is valued by geologists.
As the tide draws back, Mitchell and I settle down. Nearby, a young boy and his mum are also hunting for pretty stones. The winter sky is tinged pink – it is lunchtime, but neither sunrise nor sunset seems far off – and we crouch over the smallish stones where Mitchell thinks the rhomb porphyry might lurk. Contrary to instinct, the best way to hunt for pebbles is not to walk along the beach looking for them, stooping occasionally for something that catches your eye. Instead, Mitchell recommends staying in one place for at least 10 minutes.
“Pick over every single stone around you. Sometimes, the interesting thing might not be the thing that catches your eye,” he says. “If you sit somewhere, within minutes you will start to find things.” He tells me that he took this approach in Lyme Regis recently; the ammonites practically rolled into his lap.
I have doubts that within 10 minutes I will have examined all the stones in my spot. Every stone I pick reveals another stone. I begin to work more quickly. A small, brown square stands out. It has perfect white stripes running through it, as neat as if they had been drawn with a ruler.
“Nice,” says Mitchell, before swiftly adding that geologists should never say “nice”, in case it gets confused with “gneiss”, a metamorphic rock, the beautiful, banded structure of which resembles a layer cake. Fortunately, there is no confusion; my pebble is a quartzite. Next up is a smooth, grey stone with a wide band – a siltstone with quartz veining. Then I find a large piece of quartz – smooth and faintly mottled, the perfect size to fill an adult palm. It’s not quite translucent, but, held to the light, its centre seems to glow.
“I would have that in my collection,” Mitchell says. His stones have been banned from the house; they are kept in the garden now. Just then, a shout goes up from the boy with his mum: he has found a stone in the shape of a sausage, although this turns out to be a piece of asbestos-reinforced concrete.
I keep picking over the pebbles, eyes scanning for diamond-shaped crystals. There is a stone with a diamond pattern in it, but – like so many others – it turns out to be flint. I have nothing against flint, but it is not what I am here for today.
We pass the pier and head to the other end of the beach, stopping to pick again in front of the cliffs. I find many things: a stone that looks like an eyeball; a large flint with holes for eyes and a mouth; some beautiful sandstones, including one that looks as though it has been painted black, white and red (the red is iron staining); a heart-shaped stone; and a siltstone with green mica. They look beautiful, although their lustre has faded when I take them out of my coat pocket later to admire them again. Pebbles are at their finest shiny from the sea. You can varnish them, of course, or, if you are really serious about it, buy a tumbler and polish them slowly over a couple of weeks.
The tide is pulling further away; my hopes of finding a rhomb porphyry are receding, too. It doesn’t matter. I have found other things and the hunting has been happy. I leave Mitchell still crouched on the beach with the light beginning to fade. I am on the train, only slightly jealous, when my phone pings. It is an email from Mitchell: he found the rhomb porphyry. In the picture he sent me, the perfect ovoid gleams in his palm, the pale outlines of diamonds and other shapes pressed into its dark lava. Next time, I will know exactly what I am looking for.
Heart of stone: the best places to hunt pebbles
Kynance Cove, Cornwall
Two miles from Lizard Point, this beautiful cove is known for its serpentinite. These rocks are mottled green and red, a little like snakeskin.
Whiterocks, County Antrim
The limestone cliffs here have been carved into all manner of shapes. You can hunt here for pebbles of white cretaceous chalk and black paleogene basalt.
Cannock Chase, Staffordshire
You don’t have to go to a beach to hunt for pebbles. The river Penk has rounded sandstone pebbles aplenty, in a wide range of colours.
St Columba’s Bay, Iona, Argyll and Bute
Green, marble-flecked pebbles known as mermaid’s tears, coral granite, rocks in pastel shades – this island has it all.
Thurstaston, Merseyside
Clay cliffs overlook the river Dee and provide a variety of pebbles. This is one of the north-west’s best examples of glacial sediments from the most recent ice age.
Cayton Bay, North Yorkshire
After scouring tides, several types of rock can be seen along the beach, including limestone, calcareous sandstone and deposits from nearby Red Cliff. Semi-precious stones occasionally wash up on the beaches in this stretch of Yorkshire, including cornelian (at Cornelian Bay, a few miles north), jet and amber.
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