Most of Stokes Bay was for many years inundated by the sea. It was part of the great ‘Stoke Morass’ that ran from Browndown to Gilkicker Point, before those features were named. Over hundreds of years it gradually dried, leaving the river Alver to flow the length of the Bay exiting to the sea at Gilkicker.
The Stokes Morass can still be seen each side of the raised pathway to Gilkicker.