‘+ 
; RATE OF EROSION OF THE SEA-COASTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES. 409 
... 
or such purposes. The quantity used must be enormous, and in effect the new por- 
of the town may almost, without figure of speech, be described as in a large 
sure built out of the sea. About 1836 Hastings was separated from St. 
mards by a small marshy bottom, with a rill of water running through it, called 
the ‘ Priory Marsh,’ and during’that year the sea was excluded by the erection of a 
yertical stone wall joining the esplanade terraces, and the two towns became what 
it is now, one big town. Since that wall was erected the shingle in front of it has, 
from various causes, become much attenuated, the groynes destroyed, and the sea 
has, it is said, in places got under the sea walls. So great has been the loss in the bay 
to the eastward, where is situate the old portion of the town, the fishermen’s quarter, 
that a general exodus of that industry to Rye, or elsewhere, has been threatened. 
A second groyne is being constructed from the base of the East Cliff (where 
similar work formerly existed) at a very great cost, in order to promote accumu- 
=o of shingle along the Hastings frontage, and to bring about again the old state 
0 ings. 
Se eetment made use of by many owners of property here, as elsewhere, to the 
effect that removal of shingle for building purposes must be inappreciable (as, how- 
eyer great the abstraction for such purposes, millions of tons renew the shore after 
a change of wind) is made in evident forgetfulness or ignorance of the fact that these 
abstractions from and renewals to the natural ‘fulls’ of beach, alternately reduce 
d increase what is a circulating medium of defence, moving in opposite directions 
p and-down channel, with a preponderating movement up channel, due to prevalence 
of south-west winds, and that such a constant drain on a natural defence, however 
recuperative, must tell in the long run. 
The removal of boulders from the foreshore seaward of the summit shingle neap 
and spring ‘fulls,’ either for road-making or for manufacturing purposes, not only 
loosens the foreshore, and renders it, thus disintegrated, less able to resist the stroke 
of the wave, but in many cases, such as the ‘Chenies’ rock off Sheerness, and the 
“Septaria’ blocks off Harwich, the material formed natural groynes and breakwaters, 
and their removal, in reference to shore conservancy, was most suicidal. 
__ Another fertile source of accelerated erosion of a special locality is the erection 
of a close pier for a harbour entrance, and of large and lofty groynes for accumu- 
lating shingle, looking only to the protection of an isolated frontage, and without 
erence to the attendant abstraction of material to the leeward of such works, from 
the absolute stoppage of the material on its way to the less favoured locality. The 
e is parallel to the last, as the oscillating medium is laid under heavier contribu- 
on od a favoured locality, and is gradually starved for the neglected neighbour to 
leeward. 
_ Folkestone may be cited as a principal delinquent of this class, due to the elonga- 
on of the close pier to the windward or westward of its harbour, which half a 
tury back was a trap for shingle; and a fisherman’s first task in the early morning, 
or to that, was to excavate a channel through the newly-arrived shingle to get his 
at through and out to sea. The resultant accumulation of shingle to windward 
forms the tongue of land on which stands the ‘ Pavilion,’ &c. 
_ Now, in ‘ East Wear’ Bay there is an almost entire absence of shingle, and the 
esultant falls of the chalk undercliff take place at so alarming a rate that the very 
tence of the South-Eastern Railway is jeopardised. That this action is not due 
he Admiralty pier at Dover is shown by the entire absence of shingle to wind- 
d of that work, but in its place a remarkable extension of the silty foreshore has 
ken place, gradually diminishing towards Folkestone. Eastward of Dover we have 
lar results from the same cause ; from the Castle jetty to St. Margaret’s the base 
‘ the lofty chalk cliff is now washed and abraded by the waves, and the lower débris 
shingle, forming an undercliff carriage-way into Dover some thirty years back, has 
vy entirely disappeared. 
We may be asked to suggest a remedy, but this, perhaps, is beyond the province of 
Memorandum ; but as regards the old stereotyped plan of building a solid pier out 
m the shore, for communication therewith from vessels, or for protection of the 
all of a tidal river, it has been suggested that there are numerous cases where a 
ang beach has to be crossed, that it would be better to commence the solid work 
gether seaward of the shingle ‘fulls,’ and connect it with open piling to the 
e, and so as to leave the littoral movement of beach uninterfered with. 
As respects groynes, there is hardly a watering-place on our southern coast where 
y have not become a burning verata questio of the day, and, at most of 
, illustrate the suggestion made more than thirty years back, that groynes cut 
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