Brambles Chine

Brambles Chine is a chine in Colwell Bay, Isle of Wight, England notable for its geology. After years of erosion, a path down to the beach near Brambles Chine was destroyed, but rebuilt in 2023.¹

The chine is accessible from the coastal path. A slipway is where the chine bed used to be.²

Named from a place called Brambles on Andrew's Map of 1769, and perhaps associated with Bramblehill (1608), the origin of the name is from Lazarus Bramble, a master mariner from Yarmouth that owned the chine in 1648. The word chine is from Old English cinu (fissure, ravine).³

There is a self-catering holiday village and a park near the chine with the same name.⁴

It is located in Colwell Bay, near the villages of Freshwater and Totland. There is a small, unnamed copse of trees surrounding the chine. In the bay, there are two other chines: Linstone Chine to the north, and Colwell Chine to the south.⁵

The geology consists of the sands and clays of the Headon Hill Formation.⁶ It was one of the areas investigated in the 17th Century by Robert Hooke.⁷