188 ON TliE EKOSION AND DESIETJCTK5N 



dishlike depressions, the seams of lime stood up in sharp ridges, 

 resisting the wasting influences to which the stones had- suc- 

 cumbed. Huge timber breakwaters stood outside of this wall, 

 but they also disappeared long ago. 



Since the destruction of the wall and breakwaters, the lofty 

 banks of boulder-clay, that had so long been protected by the 

 breakwaters, quickly showed the effects of a species of sapping 

 and mining, which went on summer and winter. 



The waves hollowed out the foot of the banks and immense 

 landslips took place, dislocating the system of brick drains that 

 had formerly carried off the spring and surface water. Gradu- 

 ally the whole of the front row of cottages in Percy Square 

 disappeared in the soft clay of the wasting banks. The house 

 drains were broken and the sewage further helped the work of 

 demolition, A public house at the north-east corner of the 

 square and two cottages from each side of the square followed. 

 Some of the residents of these cottages were so loath to leave 

 them that they remained until they had to climb down and then 

 up the face of the bank to get into their front doors. One of 

 the occupiers told me at the time that he could feel his cottage 

 creeping and creaking before he left it. Soon after he did leave 

 the cottage fell. 



Outside of the front row of cottages there were gardens; be^ 

 yond that a foot road, and beyond that again a considerable 

 stretch of grass to the edge of the bank. All have disappeared, 

 including a very fair-sized garden which stretched seaward from 

 the public house already mentioned. The road behind the front 

 cottages and a large portion of the field, towards the railway 

 line, have also gone. 



The banks at Percy Square have receded up to the present 

 year, 1892, almost 100 feet west of the front i-ow of cottages. 

 The edge of tlic cliff was eighty feet further seaward in 1827, 

 and at least thirty feet about the year 1845. About 100 feet 

 in length of the retaining wall existed up to about forty years 

 ago, or perhaps later, and it extended to the little wall already 

 mentioned in the year 1827. This massive wall was built by 

 the then iJuke of Northumberland in 1811. Between 1827 and 



