 These beds, of Portlandian age, comprise a suite of sediments ranging in their depositional environment from freshwater and hypersaline lagoons to true marine shell beds and soil profiles.The site has been the subject of dozens of published accounts since the mid 19th century and is still the subject of active research.The channelled form and erosive pebbly bases which characterise the majority of the beds in this succession and the variety of environments exhibited make this by far the most complex Jurassic section in Britain."