[1] The northern part of the bay has a straight coastline that makes a 700-yard (640 m) beach that is sandy with some pebbles.

Here the coast is rocky with evidence of walls and buttresses that were built to protect the coastline.

[2] The seabed is predominantly sandy and the shallow bay shelves gradually to the shore, a shallow sandbank called Gull Bank exists just offshore which keeps a long thin pool of water next to the beach at low tide.

[2] The bay takes its name from a small priory located nearby thought to be connected to monks from St Helens Old Church.

[4] To the south of the bay is the Nodes Point Battery, which was used from the around the start of the 20th Century till 1956.