The Park Head cliff fall filmed near Bedruthan Steps

You pick your spot on the sand out of the wind, tucked in tight against the rock, and it feels like the safest place on the beach. Footage filmed on the cliffs at Park Head, on the stretch of coast near Bedruthan Steps, makes a decent case for choosing somewhere else.

The clip was taken by Paula Maguire and has since been shared by the Newquay Coastguard Search and Rescue Team, who are asking walkers and beachgoers to give the cliffs a wide berth.

What the footage shows

It is a still, bright day. Blue sky, dry grass on the clifftop, nothing about the scene that suggests anything is about to happen. Then a stream of loose rock and soil pours down the dark face into the gully below, throwing up a pale cloud of dust that hangs in the air long after the rock itself has gone.

This is not a headland collapsing into the sea. It is the kind of fall that would pass unnoticed by anyone not looking straight at it, which is rather the point. Nobody standing at the top and nobody sitting at the bottom would have had a second of warning.

“Dry crumbly cliffs by Park Head”

That was Paula’s own description of what she was looking at. Her advice alongside the clip was shorter still, and it was aimed at the beach rather than the path. Be careful where you’re sitting.

It is the habit almost everyone has on a hot day. The bottom of the cliff is where the shade is, where the wind drops, and where you can leave your things without them blowing down the beach. It is also directly underneath the part of the cliff most likely to come away.

What the coastguard is asking people to do

The coastguard message is short. Take extra care when walking along the coast path, stay away from the cliff edge and the base of cliffs, and remember that they may be overhung and unstable.

The word doing the heavy lifting there is overhung. Grass and soil at the top of a cliff can sit further out than the rock holding them up, so the ground you are standing on near the edge may have very little underneath it. You cannot see that from above. From below, that same overhang is the piece most likely to go.

Where to stand, and where to sit

None of the advice is complicated, and most of it comes down to distance.

• Pick your spot on the sand well clear of the base of the cliff, even when that is the only shade or shelter on offer.
• On the coast path, keep to the worn route rather than the strip of ground closest to the drop.
• Keep children and dogs back from both the top and the bottom.
• Treat loose rock and fresh debris at the foot of a cliff as a sign that the face above it is still shedding.

The Newquay team signed off with two words. Stay safe. Paula’s version was more specific, and it is the one worth carrying down onto the sand with the windbreak and the flask. Be careful where you’re sitting on the beach.

📷Credit: Paula Maguire