The oldest dunes at Sandscale are around 400 years old. Every year, especially in winter, they face constant battering by winds and sea, building them up and blowing them along the beach to create new dunes.
We call these new dunes ‘embryo’ dunes. They are the little hummocks of sand which are made when the blown sand forms around grasses like sea lyme grass or sand couch. Their strong roots help to anchor the sand and slowly a dune develops.
Once the embryo dunes start to get more established and the grasses are completely engulfed by sand, the fast-growing marram grass takes over. It can survive the moving, shifting sand and can grow up to a metre in height every year. Most of the dunes at Sandscale are now completely covered by grasses which eventually make the whole dune stable.