In my childhood I was familiar with the sandstone hills at the western end of the Wield. They had a distinct ridge line with a scarp slope and dip slope - much like the chalk hills. Indeed they reach a similar height to the chalk hills - Black Down above Fernhurst is the highest in the sandstone ridge with a 280 m summit while Butser Hill the highest in the South Downs is 270 m high.
When I first visited West Dorset I was surprised to see sandstone hills at all. I was familiar with the chalk and limestone cliffs of the Isle of Purbeck and with pictures of Lyme Regis with again limestone. I never realised that there was a substantial sandstone area in betweekn. What struck me too was that the form of the hills was quite different to the sandstone ridges of the Weald or the Isle of Wight.
There is no real ridge structure and all around Bridport there are a lot of individual hills. Some are rounded or flat but many have steeper sides.
Colmer's hill between Bridport and Chideock is a good example. There are a fair number of contours in the area.
At West Bay there is a good example of one of these sandstone hills half eroded away by the sea. The East Cliff looks unusual to me. I do not know many examples of vertical yellow sandstone cliffs in the UK - many sandstone cliffs have had major landslips e.g. between Shanklin and Ventnor on the Isle of Wight - though of course there is a mixed sandstone cliff at Alum Bay and red sandstone cliffs in East Devon.
The harbour entrance has caused a big buildup of shingle on the east side. Longshore drift brings shingle westwards along from the Chesil Beach direction and it builds up against the harbour entrance. Conversely the beach is washed away on the west side.
2008-05-26 @ 19:52