Old
Park is set within the `Isle of Wight Undercliff', a remarkable and distinctive
landscape zone less than 1 km. wide, stretching from Blackgang Chine in the
west to the 19th century coastal resort of Ventnor in the east and continuing
northward to Luccombe. This narrow coastal strip is an ancient landslip backed
by Greensand and Chert cliffs to the north and caused by groundwater lubrication
of slip planes within the underlying Gault Clays and Sandrock beds. This area
of 'slippage', said to be the largest rotational landslip in Europe, lies beneath
the chalk downs, from which it is separated by dramatic vertical cliffs, and
forms a sheltered, secret landscape with open sea views. The Undercliff, in
its present form, is very recent in geological terms. It is likely that a landslide
topography was formed here under Pleistocene periglacial conditions over a million
years ago but further instability within the last 10,000 years, and which continues
today, has created the present landscape.
