WOOLMER Forest Heritage Society is putting its recent cash boost to good use.

Thanks to a £10,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant, put toward its Sharing Heritage scheme, the society invited families on a fossil hunt at Bracklesham Bay, near Chichester in West Sussex.

Twenty-five fossil hunters searched the beach for ancient relics at low tide.

They found pieces from the Eocene era, 46m years ago, including sharks teeth, ray dental plates, eagle ray tail spines, nummulites (fossil plankton), turritella snail shells and venericor bivalves.

Society chairman Dr Chris Wain said: “We all had a wonderful day out and the sun shone even if it was breezy, and everyone found a fossil or two to take home.”

The society is organising several events for National Heritage Week in association with the Whitehill and Bordon Regeneration Company.

These will take place in Prince Philip Barracks from September 8-10, with a talk on the History of the Army in Bordon, walks around the barracks and a Roman event with family activities.