[1] Whitecliff Bay and Bembridge Ledges is a Site of Special Scientific Interest consisting of a large area of rock, shingle, and sand beach and the sandy cliffs behind, on the eastern end of the Isle of Wight.

The crumbling cliffs expose the rock sequence from the chalk layers to the Bembridge Marls and contain important fossils of mammals and plants.

The layers were laid down from the Upper Paleocene to the Lower Oligocene and exhibit a nearly complete series of strata from this period, providing evidence of the strongly cyclical nature of sedimentation in this part of the Hampshire Basin.

The cliff is actively eroding, and, on the newly exposed areas, pioneer species include the creeping bent, coltsfoot and bristly oxtongue.

There are ten species of lobsters and crabs, and the limpet Patella aspera and the snake-locks anemone Anemonia sulcata are at the eastern limits of their ranges.