DEGRADATION OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST. 



part of the church fell in the j'ear 1826, and the last fragment totally disap- 

 peared in 1831. In April last I visited this place, and found the sea then 

 making great ravages; several houses had gone, others were partly destroyed, 

 and quite unfit for habitation. 



The Blue Bell Inn in that village, which was built in the year 184<7, was, 

 according to a stone which I saw, and which had been fixed in the wall of 

 that building (during the course of its erection), 534 yards from the sea; 

 but when I visited Kilnsea on the 1.5th April last, it was only 491 yards 

 from the edge of the cliff'; thus showing that 4 J yards had been swept 

 away during the last six years, giving a yearly average loss of land of about 

 7^ yards. 



The other day I received a letter from Mr. Malam, in which he says, 

 that since I was there the cliff has been carried away considerably ; that he 

 has remeasured the distance from the inn to the cliff", and finds it now but 

 488 yards I It would thus appear that a considerable difference exists in 

 the amount of waste of land along this coast, it being the greatest at Kilnsea 

 and the least at Holmpton. 



The line of coast to which my remarks apply, extends about forty 

 miles, and is now losing an amount of rich agricultural soil of 2^ yards 

 annually. If, however, we take the rapid waste of Kilnsea into account, the 

 yearly loss would average 3 yards. My friend, who resides at Holmpton, 

 attributes the comparatively small amount of loss at that place to the height 

 of the cliffs north and south of Holmpton, which project and break the 

 force of the tide ; the beach is also of a concave form. 



XJi/" 





He says, " the fall nf the clay or earth at the base of the high cliffs is 

 to the extent of hundreds of thousands of tons more than where the cliffs are 

 low." The removal of this fallen cliff" must necessarily take a much longer 

 period (and so protect the coast for a greater length of time) than 

 where the land is low, and the sea does not meet with such an opposition. 

 In fact, the falling of the high cliff's acts in the same manner as the in- 

 tentional deposit of earth would do in preventing the encroachments of 

 the sea. A farmer named Blushill, who has resided at Holmpton 

 for the last forty years, told me that more land had been washed away in 

 that locality during the past year (1852) (especially between the months of 

 October and December), than had ever been the case in so short a time 

 during his recollection. 



He is the owner of some fields close to the sea, and calculates that 

 something like 25 yards have been lost from his fields within tiie last two 

 years, and he believes that equally large quantities have been lost towards 

 the south of Holmpton. 



Whilst speaking of this immense loss, I would incidentally remark, that 

 such statements as the foregoing should be received with great caution, 

 and not without thorough investigation. However honest in themselves 

 such statements may be, they may nevertheless lead to very erroneous 



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