264 



CHANGES IN SPURN POINT AND THEIR BEARING 

 ON THE SITE OF RAVENSER.* 



THOS. BLASHILL. F.R.I.B.A. 



In 1869, when I first observed the action of the sea in transport- 

 ing long" banks of shingie across the mouths of the small rivers 

 on the coast of Sussex, I was- struck by their resemblance to 

 the formation of Spurn Point. The tidal inlet called Pag-ham 

 Harbour, on the east of Selsey Bill, then presented a g-Qod 

 example of these 'travelling- beaches,' the g-ravel having- extended 

 quite across the mouth of the inlet so that the tidal waters were 

 rapidly eating- into the further shore. At the same time the 

 waves were destroying- the bank at the point where it had jutted 

 out, so that the formation of a new entrance to the harbour at 

 that spot seemed probable. But soon afterwards the harbour 

 was reclaimed and this interesting process was stopped. I 

 found that there were many cases where such a result had 

 actually happened, and one in particular on the south-east coast 

 of Ireland, where a sandbank travels across the mouth of an 

 inlet and is destroyed and renewed at the point from which it 

 starts at intervals of about twenty years. Mr. R. G. Allanson- 

 Winn, whom I have asked, kindly sug-gests that this is 

 Tacumshin Lake on the coast of Wexford. Except that the 

 process is shorter and more regular it closely corresponds with 

 the formation of Spurn. 



When I undertook this paper I had not seen the report of 

 Mr. Clement Reid in the ' Geology of Holderness ' (Geological 

 Survey Memoir), where he shows by good evidence that such 

 a process is going on intermittently at Spurn, but though this 

 idea is not now new, it seems that little has been done to make 

 the behaviour of this travelling beach and the historical records 

 of Ravenser explain each other. I need hardly point out that 

 the records to which I shall have to refer have been brought 

 together by Mr. J. R. Boyle, F.S.A., in his ' Lost Towns of the 

 Humber,' published in 18S9. 



In 1066, when the army of Northmen, defeated by Harold, 

 departed from Ravenser, that name was applied only to the 

 original haven in the parish of Kilnsea, then protected from the 

 sea by a spit of shingle that had probably not progressed very 



*Read at the Spurn meeting- of the Voiksliire NaturaHsts' Union, 2nd 



July. ^ 



Naturalist, 



