A Norfolk beach cafe's museum holds a treasure trove of fossils

West Runton's Blue Flag beach and its fossil-rich cliffs

A small cafe sitting on cliffs above the beach in North Norfolk is a haven for geologists and fossil-hunters - as well as families seeking a day out. The Seaview Cafe in West Runton features a fossil display which is possibly the largest on the coast. It includes a diverse collection of prehistoric giants including mammoth fossils, woolly rhino, steppe bison, and hyena.

The coastline is part of North Norfolk’s Deep History Coast and West Runton near Cromer has been the source of some of the world’s richest fossil finds. These include the world’s largest and most complete Steppe mammoth dating back around 700,000 years, rhinoceros, deer and many more plants and animals showcasing a rich geological past.

Archaeologists take a cast of a mammoth bone found in the cliffs

Another find puts mankind on this spot some 800,000 years ago. A fossilised bone from a deer with butchery carving marks left on the bone was found here. Other animal finds include deer antler, beaver, vole, hippopotamus, mammoth teeth and bones, and hyena along with coprolites or fossilised animal poo. Sea creatures including echinoids or sea urchin, belemnites and brachiopods are commonly found on the beach.

A gigantic bone was found by walkers at the base of the cliffs after a storm in December 1990. The walkers alerted Norfolk’s Museum Service which identified it as the hip bone of a large type of extinct elephant.

Three months later further bones were uncovered showing this was a find of major significance. And in 1992 an exploratory excavation took place followed by a major excavation to recover the steppe mammoth.

This revealed that West Runton’s steppe mammoth was the most complete specimen of the animal in the world and the oldest mammoth skeleton found in the UK. Some 85 per cent of the skeleton was recovered.

Experts found that the mammoth bones had teeth marks from a spotted hyena which had probably scavenged the body. They also discovered the mammoth was aged in his mid forties and had a diseased and deformed right knee. This was likely to have caused this relatively young animal’s death. He weighed about ten tonnes – twice the weight of an African elephant – and was four metres tall at the shoulder – the height of a double decker bus.

Photographs of the dig to recover the mammoth are in the cafe’s exhibition while some of the bones can be seen in Cromer museum

Some of the many fossil finds from the beach

More bones including a tooth, vertebrae and the end of a thigh bone were found on the beach by three local fossil hunters in November 2024. London’s Natural History Museum confirmed these were bones from a different sort of mammoth.

These bones also had teeth marks, possibly from a hyena, but a full excavation of this latest find has not been completed because of a lack of funds.

The three local amateur palaeontologists, who found the latest mammoth have been searching for fossils and finding bits of bone at West Runton since 1982.

Other fossil hunters have found a baby mammoth tooth in 2016 and half a mammoth pelvis in 2020. And tourists regularly take finds into the cafe after a day combing the beach.

Teeth from the steppe mammoth

The beach at West Runton shows how climate change is nothing new. Looking towards the sea, to the left or West is the start of a massive chalk reef created 100 million years ago during a period of warm tropical waters. To the right or East is a sandy beach with the cliffs and fossils deposited in the Ice Age.

The chalk reef is part of the 20-mile long Norfolk’s Great Chalk Reef stretching from Weybourne to Happisburgh.  It is home to more than 350 different species of plants and animals, some of which are not found anywhere else in the world.

The Seaview Beach Cafe provides everything families might need on a day trip to this Blue Flag beach, one of the cleanest in the country, and regularly checked for water quality.

Buckets, spades, beach-balls, flip-flops and nets as well as refreshments for families going on the sandy beach or exploring the rock pools of the reef. And the beach is patrolled by RNLI lifeguards during the summer.

The Seaview Beach cafe - a museum-cafe on the cliffs at West Runton near Cromer

But for decades the cafe has also been producing snacks and drinks to others using the beach and provided a meeting point for fossil-hunters to show their finds, share knowledge and seek advice with identification.

The Covid lockdown in 2020 forced the cafe to close its seating area to customers for almost two years. Instead, the cafe provided a takeaway service only to customers visiting the beach.

But cafe owner Louise O’Shea, who has run the cafe for 28 years, converted the indoor seating area into a museum to display its own collection of West Runton fossils.

And from then interest grew. Local fossil hunters loaned their finds to put on display. The Norfolk museum service provided films and materials explaining the story behind West Runton’s steppe mammoth discovery and excavation.

Schools, colleges, universities and other fossil hunters have descended on the cafe to see the collection. And one local expert gives on-site identification of people’s finds from the beach most days in the cafe’s courtyard.

The Seaview Cafe is open daily from the end of March to late September. It is at the end of Water Lane and there is a large car park on top of the cliffs. The postcode is NR27 9QP.