Lulworth Banks

Lulworth Banks is a large, varied reef system located several square miles due south of Durdle Door on the Dorset coast, with depths ranging from around 10 m to a maximum of 22 m. The reef covers several square miles and is classified as a reef, wreck, and drift site suited to sports diver level. Lying on the banks is the British Inventor, a British steam-driven oil tanker mined on 13 June 1940 — also known locally as the Scallop Wreck — whose hull was largely destroyed by the explosion, leaving only scattered remains across the reef.

The reef holds a wide variety of marine life throughout its extent, with scallops, lobsters, and flatfish regularly encountered across the reef structure, alongside crabs, wrasse, and nudibranchs. The British Inventor wreck, in particular, is noted for a remarkable density of scallops colonising both the wreck and the surrounding reef, and attracts shoals of bib and pollock that greet divers on descent.

Lulworth Banks is often planned as a drift dive, and the site is considered suitable for beginner-level sports divers given its depth range and reef bottom type.