Blackgang Chine

Blackgang Chine is the name of a coastal formation on the Isle of Wight off the coast of southern England.

Chine is a local term in southern England for occurring at the local coastal erosion characteristic steep valleys that are formed by water flowing down these tracks on their way through the sandstone or chalk - cliffs of the south coast of England. Of these Chines there alone on the Isle of Wight 19, of which the Blackgang Chine is the most distinctive and best known. This Chines were not rare in the past as a hideout for smugglers, for example, but they are also for paleontologists important because they, similar to exposing a canyon, through their progressive erosion ever deeper and thus older layers of rock.

The Blackgang Chine is located near the town of Ventnor at the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. Here, the erosion is particularly pronounced because the lying below the Gault Clay Formation is a clay layer uses easily accessible from the Cretaceous period, so it regularly came to larger landslides and here comes the assumptions greater proportions especially in the twenties. This resulted in particularly rugged and impressive landscapes.

Amusement park

Blackgang Chine is the location of the eponymous amusement parks, founded in 1843 by Alexander Dabell, deemed the oldest theme park in Britain. He is still owned by the family of Dabells. He is best known for his life-size replicas of dinosaurs; to see is the skeleton of a whale as well as embedded in the landscape paths that lead from the cliff to a waterfall and down to the beach. The severe erosion have some of these pathways already at the beginning of the 20th century. disappear, and the cliffs are since the establishment of the amusement park wandered inland a considerable distance, so that the park had to be postponed accordingly. Today the amusement park is aimed primarily at families with children.

Today's owners of the plant is Simon Dabell. The name Blackgang probably derives originally only to a " black path " from, but to give the whole thing a more interesting painting, the name was brought " popular etymology " with the mischief of businesses operating here smugglers in conjunction. Accordingly, visitors are greeted at the entrance by a colossal statue of a smuggler, through whose legs they enter the park. From the cliffs to offer a unique view of the English Channel and the Isle of Wight. The dinosaur models of the theme park refer to any actual dinosaur fossils found here appropriate. Nearby there is the nudist beach Blackgang Beach.