Southerndown

As Southerndown, along with nearby Ogmore-by-Sea, is a west-facing beach (and hence on the Atlantic coast), off-shore winds usually generate much good-quality surf, helped by the warming effects of the Gulf Stream.

A larger rocky shore platform and beach to the southeast is separated by a headland on which are the remains of Dunraven Castle (Welsh: Castell Dwnrhefn).

It has been used in the occasional TV production, including on Doctor Who: as Bad Wolf Bay in "Doomsday"[1] and "Journey's End", as the surface of the alien planet in "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone", and as the engine room of the ark ship in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship".

Continental drift and earthquakes folded and fractured the Earth's crust, and during the next 100 million years the rocks suffered extensive erosion.

Rocks formed close to the shore (Sutton Stone and Southerndown Beds) are strikingly different from the Blue Lias, which was deposited at the same time but farther offshore.

The Sutton Stone and Southerndown Beds pass laterally into, and are overlain by, the alternating blue-grey limestones and shales of the Blue Lias.