516 Notices of Memoirs — G. II. Morton — Erosion of Wirral. 



IV. — Erosion of the Sea-coast of Wirral. By G. H. Morton, 



F.G.S. 



fTlHE oldest maps of the coast of Wirral, the north-western 

 1 extremity of Cheshire, afford very little information on the 

 exact outline of the coast in former years. It was not until 

 the publication of the 6-inch map of the Ordnance Survey in 1880, 

 that it became possible to make exact observations on the erosion 

 of the coast. The late Sir James Picton, F.S.A., in 1846, was the 

 first to direct attention to the waste of the land, but he had not made 

 any personal investigation, and more recent writers on the subject 

 have confined themselves to showing the incorrectness of some 

 of his statements, rather than making original observations. The 

 object of this paper is to record the result of close attention given to 

 the subject for many years. 



Half a mile south-west of the Leasowe Embankment, and about 

 100 yards from Seabank Cottages, there is an old weather-beaten 

 brick and stone house, known as the " Warren," and evidently the 

 oldest in the neighbourhood. According to the 6-inch Ordnance 

 Map, the distance between the house and the sea was about 

 130 yards when the country was surveyed in 1871, but I found 

 it to be 70 yards in 1890, 55 yards in March 1894, and only 

 45 yards in May 1896, and the residents have shown me the position 

 of several high sand-hills that once formed part of the lost land. 



In an affidavit, filed in a recent case concerning the extension 

 of the Embankment, George Banks states that he had been born and 

 had lived in the house ever since. It was only 60 yards from high- 

 water mark at spring tides in 1892, " whereas when he first 

 remembered it, the house stood at least 350 yards from high-water 

 mark at spring tides, and the land washed away included some 

 sand-hills 30 and 40 feet, and one 50 or 60 feet in height." 



The greatest erosion by the sea along the coast has taken place 

 at Dove Point, about 350 yards to the south-west of the house. In 

 1862 there were two " perches " constructed of timber, one being 

 10 yards from the edge of the sand-hills, which were then about 

 12 feet high, and the other 150 yards behind, near the boundary 

 of the enclosed land. The seaward perch is shown in the frontis- 

 piece of the "Geology around Liverpool." On January 20, 1863, 

 this perch had become close to the edge of the cliff and fell down on 

 the shore, its original position being indicated by several masses 

 of masonry and large stones which had formed the foundation of the 

 structure. The perch was re-erected on the sand-hills, and is shown 

 on the 6-inch map, but it was afterwards removed, with the one 

 behind, to the north-east of the " Warren," so that neither of them 

 is now in the place shown on the map. The foundation stones still 

 lie on the shore in their original position. In consequence of the 

 continual erosion by the sea the stones have gradually become 

 further from the coast-line, and in September, 1S94, the distance was 

 144 yards, showing the erosion of the coast from 1863 to 1894 

 to have been between 4 and 5 yards per annum. In May, 1.S96, the 





