Vincent May

The sea has always influenced the coast and its use. It moulds the coast through erosion and yet on this coast, surprisingly little land or property has been lost. Erosion has exposed the rocks and geological structures which form the coast. Easy access to the cliffs and shore platforms has allowed scientists and amateurs alike to explore and understand the history of the earth throughout the Jurassic and much of the Cretaceous. Without this, Dorset (and East Devon) would not have become the crucible of the earth sciences for which it is renowned. Without the sea’s impact, this coast could not have been designated as a World Heritage Site on grounds of its geology and geomorphology of Universal Scientific Value.

The sea always was a resource to be used. From the earliest occupation of the coast, it provided food (shellfish and fish) and salt, an especially important commodity.

At the time of Domesday (1086), salt workers and salt houses were recorded at Studland, Lyme, Ower (in Poole Harbour), Weymouth and Charmouth. Salt works at Lyme were set up on land near the mouth of the river Lym granted to the Abbott of Sherborne in 774. The Ower saltpans were still in use in 1585 and the place name ‘Salternes’ at Studland records their existence, although there is no trace of them today. The Bindon Abbey Estate records in 1313 included fisheries and salt works at Wareham.

Access to the sea and shelter from it influenced the siting of ports and transport routes and had an impact on the original location of ports. Even though the original reason for them has disappeared, they remain important features of the coastal landscape and its activities. The location of the ports has been a strong influence on the patterns of arrival and spread of migrants, disease and invasive animal and plant species. From the Defence map of the sixteenth century, parts of the Dorset coast became increasingly important for naval establishments and for naval research.

In the past two centuries, the influence of the sea on climate and therefore on health became the most important stimulus for growth of settlements and health resorts gradually dominated the coastal landscape.

Erosion

The combined effects of tides, currents and waves as well as the sub-aerial processes of weathering and erosion working on different rocks and structures along the coast have produced a complex and intricate coastline. There is little evidence to indicate that the rates of cliff retreat described in Coastal Form Processes have been maintained during the historical period. Indeed the evidence largely points to an amazingly stable shoreline except in the western coast around Lyme Regis, and, even there, there have been periods of quiescence interspersed with great landslides, especially to the west in Devon.

Erosion of the cliffs was not a serious problem for the local community until the nineteenth century when building began on the cliffs at Bournemouth and Southbourne. On the rural coast of the Isle of Purbeck, little has been lost from the Iron Age fort at Flower’s Barrow above Worbarrow Bay. Sparrow’s 1768-71 survey of the Weld Estate shows Flower’s Barrow much as it is today – the losses over the last two centuries have been small. Although some of the ancient fields west of Lulworth have been eroded at their seaward ends, they were abandoned for economic and social reasons.

There are few references to features which existed in the past and then were taken by the sea. Treswell refers in 1585 to Studland Castle marking one of the boundary points of the Isle of Purbeck. His map and many others of the time identify the present-day location of Old Harry as Studland Castle also known as Handfast Point. There is, however, no evidence of a castle. The name may simply be a reference to the castellated form of the Old Harry stacks. Records show that a battery was placed from time to time at Studland in order to guard the entrance to Poole harbour and the headland was identified as one of the battery sites on the 16th century Defence Map. Some of the present active landslides were used for roads and tracks, for example between Lyme Regis and Charmouth, and around Hounstout joining Encombe to Kingston (an 18th century track which avoided the then poverty-stricken villages and can be seen clearly on either side of Hounstout on the aerial photographs of this area).

It is also possible to judge the changes that have taken place at the resorts from the contrasts between the old photographs and prints and present-day photographs (see photograph below of the beach in 1855). The mainly sandy cliffs fed the beaches and there were beaches wide enough for bathing machines. By 1914, it was reported that the cliffs at Bournemouth had become steeper and the sea was clearing the debris from falls off the beaches more efficiently (Ord et al 1914).

Print of Bournemouth Sands in 1855 (RCAGM).

Further east at Southbourne and Hengistbury Head, erosion of the beaches and cliffs was proceeding rapidly: contemporary estimates suggest 12 to 18 inches per annum (0.3 to 0.46 metres per year) between Bournemouth and Boscombe and three yards per annum (2.74 metres per year) at Double Dykes. Similarly, the losses at Highcliffe had been about a yard a year (just under 1 metre per year) and the losses of land were said to be so rapid in the late eighteenth century that the estate workers were kept ready to repair the coast path in case Lord Bute chose to walk there (Ord et al 1914). Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford, in her Recollections to the age of 12, wrote that the head gardener was often anxious to be able to make a path before his lordship appeared and saw a fresh fall of cliff. She recognised that the problem was the landsliding in the clays and had extensive drains placed in the cliffs to drain the water to the beach and so keep the clays dry. A later owner told the Royal Commission on Coast Erosion (1907-11) that, but for the erosion, his estate might be a mile (1.6 km) wider.

At Lyme Regis, where landslides not surprisingly affected the stability of the town built on them, the problem of erosion is recorded as early as the mid-sixteenth century (see Impacts of Landslides and Coastal Change). Cullingford (1980) records that any stranger arriving in Lyme to live or trade had either to become a freeman or pay 3 shillings and sixpence a week towards the cost of repairs of the Cobb and the sea walls.

As the growth of resorts was accompanied by the construction of promenades which cut off the supply of sand and gravel, the resorts soon became the main centres of the fight against erosion. At Southbourne-On-Sea, the separate new resort east of Bournemouth, for which land was purchased by Dr Compton in 1870, lost houses and its pier in 1899. The pier was opened on 2 August 1888. By 1908, the seawall and esplanade were damaged.

The sea was also a place from which to gain land. Much of the present-day central part of Poole stands on land reclaimed partly by dumping town waste on to mudflats, partly by the extension of wharves and quays and partly by deliberate infilling of shallow creeks. A survey by the Crown in 1630 identified ‘ozie, slubbie or glibsey grounds recovered from the sea” (Bettey p. 117). Further west, Lodmoor was first drained in the 1630s and the Corporation of Weymouth and Melcombe carried out drainage and sea protection works in the 1640s. Sir George Horsey set up a company in the 1630s with the ambitious aim to drain the Fleet, but it was not successful and he lost his money.

Ports and transport

It has long been recognised that the estuaries of the south coast of England and the river valleys extending into the mainland provided access for trade. Recent archaeological investigations in Poole Harbour have revealed what has been described as Britain’s first cross-channel port, dating from the Iron Age (History on the Seabed). There were Roman harbours at Christchurch and Hamworthy, and there may have been another in the Weymouth area.

Hengistbury Head and Christchurch Harbour

However, Hengistbury Head was by far the most important of the pre-Roman links between land and sea. From the earliest days of settlement in southern Britain, the accessibility of Hengistbury Head and the shelter it gave to Christchurch Harbour, coupled with the routes along the Avon and Stour rivers, gave it a significance which outweighs any other Dorset coastal site. The archaeological investigations, mostly under the supervision of Professor Barry Cunliffe (1987), demonstrate that the site was occupied from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. Cunliffe has said that Hengistbury Head is one of the very few places in Britain where it is possible to trace human occupancy from 10, 000 years ago to the present-day. During the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, sea level was rising rapidly but only reached present levels about 6,000 years ago. Hengistbury would have been part of a larger hill overlooking the rivers Avon and Stour.

During the Neolithic, the hill provided shelter beside the newly flooded estuary. Parts of the site were cultivated. Evidence from stone tools made of materials found in Devon and Armorica (present-day Brittany) indicate that there was active trading by sea. By the Iron Age, trade with northern Italy and Armorica is evidenced by amphorae (for wine) and ores were brought from the Mendips and Dartmoor. The importance of accessible sheltered ports on the Dorset coast from the earliest days cannot be better demonstrated. However, Hengistbury’s role as a commercial harbour declined. Poole, Lyme Regis and Weymouth show the same pattern of growth and decline, sometimes more than once.

Trade needed good access to the sea and this required safe harbour entrances deep enough to allow larger and larger ships access. At Christchurch, for example, there were several attempts to manage the harbour mouth, the most notorious being the construction of the jetties through the spit. At the end of the seventeenth century, Andrew Yarranton, supported by Lord Clarendon, Lord of the Manor of Christchurch and Chancellor to Charles II, constructed a cut through Mudeford spit using ironstone boulders from nearby Hengistbury Head. Because he built the jetty on the downdrift side of the channel, the cut was constantly being blocked. Clarendon Rocks can be seen today and appear on many of the charts and maps of Christchurch. Yarranton also proposed improvements to the river Avon to improve navigation towards Salisbury. The same idea was proposed again in 1762 by John Smeaton who like Yarranton would have built jetties through the spit and used ironstone boulders from Hengistbury Head.

Although the erosion of Hengistbury Head is usually blamed on the removal in the nineteenth century of ironstone boulders for smelting in South Wales, the more rapid erosion of the Head had probably been aided by Yarranton’s earlier use of the rocks for Clarendon Rocks.

Christchurch Harbour remained a shallow estuary. Coal imports (for example “Best Sunderland Wallsend “ coal was advertised locally) could only be brought to Christchurch Quay by shallow-draught barges towed by steam tugs. These barges then returned to Southampton using ironstone as ballast (The Red House Museum in Christchurch tells much of this story).

Overseas commerce and Poole

During the 12th to 14th centuries, Poole developed into a very prosperous town based on commerce overseas. A Royal Charter of 1433 established Poole as a staple port. This gave it the authority to collect customs duties on behalf of the King. The town had few connections with its hinterland, but its merchants became wealthy and built important local stone houses (Beamish et al 1974). Its trade appears to have been spread throughout the European continent, the Baltic and the Mediterranean.

Poole’s second boom came in the late 17th century with the North Atlantic trade in fish. Depression caused by the wars with France also receded in the 1720s as the Newfoundland trade recovered. At the same time, profitable trade links were established with South Carolina (Beamish et al 1974). Again, the wealth from this trade supported the construction of many new buildings whose architecture is still part of the character of the Old Town.

From the 17th century onwards, Poole and its trade were continuously threatened by privateers. Not only was the town threatened by raids but also the ships travelling to and from Newfoundland were attacked – appeals were made to the Government for protection of convoys (Beamish et al 1974). There is plenty of evidence, however, that Poole’s men were ready to act as privateers against the enemy of the day, including three privateers equipped by the town during the Seven Years War against Spain and France. As Beamish et al (1974, p. 18) put it, in this way the merchants and mariners of the town were able to “ do their patriotic duty”, as well as revenging attacks by enemy privateers on Poole ships, and keep any prize money.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Poole vessels broke the blockade to import French wine on which very large profits were made. As much dried cod as the Poole ships could supply to European countries was sold or bartered for wine. By 1802, Poole had over 350 ships with 2000 men employed directly in the Newfoundland trade and was at the peak of its prosperity.

Sketch of fishermen drying their sails in Poole Harbour (RCAGM).

The defeat of Napoleon finished this era of prosperity. Treaties allowed French and American ships to fish the Newfoundland fisheries and other nations were allowed to trade with the Newfoundland colonies. As war and blockades ended, the countries of mainland Europe revived their own fish trade. Poole's fish trade collapsed. By 1828, only 10 British ships fished Newfoundland waters (Beamish et al 1974). Shipbuilding prospered through all these periods, and by 1830, there were thirteen ship and boat builders. The merchants built their estates, and many of the large houses around Poole, including Upton House on the northern shores of Holes Bay, using their profits from the Newfoundland trade. Some went bankrupt following the collapse of the same trade. Demand for clay for potteries began to expand from the 1830s onwards and Poole also began to develop coastal trade in grain grown in the surrounding countryside. Links with the hinterland and local resources provided as never before the basis for the port's success or otherwise. Nevertheless, by 1833, there were only 70 ships and 440 men.

Another casualty of the collapse of the Newfoundland trade was the Poole Oyster fishery. This had provided two months of employment each spring, and was strictly controlled by the Corporation. However, with illegal dredging and then the loss under the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 of the Corporation’s powers to control fisheries in the harbour, the oyster beds quickly became extinct.

To add to Poole’s problems, the harbour was silting up and probably could not accommodate the larger steamships that were now beginning to carry the coastal trade. With £800 available to spend on the port, the Corporation commissioned a report from Rendel in 1827. He reported that considerable engineering works were needed to keep the channels clear and to maintain the depth of the entrance. This would cost £14, 050! He concluded that without the works and

“if the present evils so powerfully at work within the Estuary are neglected or even slightly remedied….”

Poole would soon decline in the same way as Wareham and other harbours along the south coast.

Rendel’s proposed works became a bargaining point in a heated debate about a bridge from Poole to Hamworthy which was only resolved in 1838. The bridge was built. However, the merchants of Poole still wanted to assure the prosperity of the port and so in 1846 they drafted a Poole Harbour Bill to allow construction of a pier or piers at the mouth of the harbour extending 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to sea. It would use the eagerly expected railway. The Council did not like the proposal and dismissed this “ visionary experiment on this excellent Harbour” saying that “ it was absurd to pretend that 1 ½ miles of Pier, carried out on a Quicksand, the face of the Ocean” could be paid for by the proposed sum of £150, 000 (Beamish et al 1974, p. 258). Proposals for port improvement continued with little success into the 1930s.

As Poole struggled to maintain its former prosperity, along the coast a new rival was beginning to grow – the new resort of Bournemouth. The marine trade was less and less important, as the value of the sea as a source of health was realised.

Melcombe (now Weymouth), Bridport and Lyme Regis were also important for the trade of their hinterland. Until the mid-fifteenth century, Melcombe had had a comparable status to Poole, but it was demoted to the status of a “creek”. Goods such as wool and wine, which were subject to duty, could no longer be carried through the port. 16th Century Weymouth (now joined with Melcombe) won a contract to trade with the newly founded colonies in Newfoundland and Labrador. Cloth known as Dorset “dozens” - a coarse narrow cloth made of the coarsest wools in Dorset – was exported from medieval Lyme Regis. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Lyme Regis imported ivory and exotic woods from Africa in return for manufactured goods (see Theme 3 Topic 2 History on the Seabed). All the coastal villages had small fishing communities and used the sea (see below for a section of map of 1758 showing Abbotsbury ships).

Section of a map from 1758 showing ships near Abbotsbury (DCM).

It is perhaps not surprising that smuggling was a thriving activity along much of the coast (see Epitaph on a tombstone at Kinson dated 1765), particularly after the 1733 Excise and Customs Act. Restrictions on imports and heavy duties on such commodities as brandy, wines and lace stimulated both smuggling and blockade running.

Photograph of a tombstone dated 1765 (BBC).

The arrival of the railways was fundamental to the growth and success of the resorts, and gave access to the ports. This was probably most important for Weymouth and Portland, for it provided links both to the Continent and for the naval port. All the resorts, however, benefited from the railways as these brought the tourists directly to them.

Defence

The role of the Dorset coast in the defence of the realm has also been important. Coastal towns were expected to contribute ships and men for the country’s defence and so the records show for example that two ships from Lyme Regis joined the fleet as it engaged the Spanish Armada. As early as the sixteenth century the need for defensive structures was surveyed. The map identified a number of locations on which gun batteries could be sited. The Royal Navy’s large artificial harbour at Portland was constructed in two phases: 1849 to 1872 and 1894 to 1903. Nothe Fort to protect the northern entrance was commissioned in 1859 and built between 1860 and 1872 overlooking the northern end of Portland harbour. The breakwater at Nothe was not completed until 1903.The design was for a breakwater 2500 yards in length enclosing an area of 2107 acres by the end of March 1857. It is recorded that 2, 667, 907 tons of stone were used (see engraving below). The cost was about one quarter of the cost of similar breakwaters at Cherbourg and Plymouth because local stone was available on Portland itself.

Engraving of Government works undertaken on the Breakwater (DCM).

Both Portland and Weymouth harbours played a critical role in the embarkation of troops and equipment for the Normandy landings on D Day (6th June 1944). The United States First Infantry Division and Ranger units were amongst the large American force which sailed from Weymouth and Portland and landed on Omaha Beach. Between 6th June 1944 and 7th May 1945, 517,816 troops and 144, 093 vehicles were moved through the port by the U S Army (www.thedorsetpage.com).

The establishment of the harbour at Portland gave rise to a wide range of activities and industry supporting the Royal Navy. These included the development of sonar at what became the Underwater Weapons Research Establishment on Portland. The Royal Marines at Poole and the Tank ranges at Lulworth are present-day users of the coast and its waters. The potential threat from across the English Channel stimulated the development of radar in the 1940s. Much early radar research was carried out at Worth Matravers. The masts and layout of the site are visible on the aerial photography taken by the RAF in the late 1940s. The remnants of World War II defences remain all along the coast (e.g. Block Houses on Chesil Beach).

Photograph of the remains of a World War II Block House on Chesil Beach (DCM).

At Christchurch, the Experimental Bridging Establishment which became the Military Engineering Experimental Establishment (MEXE) was where the world-renowned Bailey Bridge was conceived and built. Today the Bridging Camp at Chickerill (visible on aerial photographs of the area) where training of military bridging engineers takes place continues the tradition.

Migrants

In many respects, the most significant migrations from Dorset in recent centuries were the enforced transportations of agricultural workers to Australia and the spread of Poole people to Newfoundland. One other long-lasting effect of migration by sea was the practice of inheritance on Portland known as ‘Gavelkind’. Under this, the estate was divided equally between all successors, including daughters. All the other locations in England where this practice, brought in by the Jutes, are coastal – notably Kent, where, like Portland, this form of inheritance was still in use in the 1930s.

Explorers and colonisers left Weymouth like many other ports. Richard Clark sailed in 1583 to join Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s voyage to Newfoundland. Having entered St John’s harbour, Sir Humphrey took possession of the region in the name of the Queen, and became governor of the colony of fishermen. John Endicott sailed from Weymouth in June 1628 to found a new colony in North America. Naumkeag (which later became known as Salem) was reached on 6th September. From this early settlement and others, the colony grew and Endicott became the first Governor of Massachusetts in 1649. John Endicott and five companions obtained from the private Council for New England a grant of land a strip of North America 60 miles wide and which extended “from sea to shining sea” –does this really mean from the Atlantic to the Pacific? The New England Company, founded in 1628, took over the Dorchester Company which had established a short-lived colony at Cape Ann. In 1629, The New England Company obtained a Royal Charter as the ‘Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England’. Trade became less important than the idea of the colony as a political and religious refuge for the Puritans. A potential trading link with Weymouth disappeared. In the meantime, Poole’s links with Newfoundland prospered.

Diseases and health

Just as today it is the global spread of disease by air travellers through airports, which concerns health authorities, so in earlier times the main risk of disease entering the country was at the ports. The most notorious event of the medieval period was the arrival and spread of the ‘Black Death’ - plague - through Melcombe in 1348. The impact on the local villages was devastating and some were abandoned. The sea remained a place which brought danger. Its influence was malign, not benign. That did not change until the late eighteenth century.

The eighteenth century belief that the sea was good for health ultimately had the biggest impact on the coastal landscape. Health resorts became the vogue. The coastal climate was the biggest single natural influence of the sea, but the influence of the fashionable belief that the sea was a source of improved health was the stimulus to growth. The Duke of Gloucester visited Weymouth in 1780, the construction of the Esplanade began in 1785 and from 1789, George III became a regular visitor to Melcombe Regis.

The origins of the town as a health resort owe their origins, however, to Dr Allen, a postmaster and one-time mayor of Bath, who rather than taking the waters in Bath chose instead to visit Weymouth in summer. Dr Allen’s visitors spread the news of Weymouth’s virtue as a sea-bathing resort. Weymouth developed, with the arrival of the railways, into a traditional seaside resort, very popular with families.

The climate of Bournemouth was very much a focus of attention as it was put forward as a feature, indeed a unique feature, that made Bournemouth especially important for its pre-eminent role as a health resort.

In 1841, Dr A.B. Granville in his very influential “The Spas of England” wrote

“ ….no situation that I have had occasion to examine along the whole Southern coast possesses so many capabilities of being made the very first watering place in England, and not only as a watering place, but what is still more important, a winter residence for the delicate constitutions requiring a warm and sheltered locality”.

The much quoted climatic advantages were discussed by Harries in 1914 who explained that because of the inconsistencies in the location of the meteorological recording stations in health resorts it was not possible to make a satisfactory comparison between them. He concluded, however, that

“ In these circumstances Bournemouth should be content with its unique position in the climatic scale, which is not equalled by any other town”

The town was, in his opinion (p.125),

“blessed also with a rare combination of sea air and pine-wood air, a combination which is of inestimable value”.

He emphasised that the other important feature of Bournemouth’s climate was the variety of local climates in the town. Put another way, the visitor or resident would always be able to find protection against the wind wherever it blew from. Bournemouth’s claim to a mild sunny climate remains one of its important selling points.

When the British Medical Association met in Bournemouth in 1934, much was made of the health-giving attributes of the resort (see the Sanatorium for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, Bournemouth). The gentle breezes from the sea temper the air (Smith 1934) and the climate was said to be particularly suitable for a range of diseases.

Engraving of The Sanatorium for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, Bournemouth (RCAGM).

How important is the sea’s influence on the local climate? Measurements of air temperatures taken along Boscombe pier and up the Chine to the north side of Christchurch Road during calm high pressure conditions in winter have shown that there is often a fall of temperature along this transect of as much as 4 degrees Celsius. With the sea relatively warm compared to the cold frosty land under these conditions such differences are not surprising. Winds blowing on-shore from warmer seas during the early part of winter have a similar warming effect. In contrast, however, in summer sea mists can leave the coast several degrees cooler than the clear sunny skies just inland from Christchurch Road. Rainfall is generally slightly lower at the coast than further inland, but the higher inland rainfall is more likely a result of the greater altitude.

The development of the resorts gave rise to a wide range of employment, for example the production of souvenirs such as a ceramic miniature of a bathing machine at Bournemouth in the Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum.

Lyme Regis became a fashionable resort for society in Bath (personified by Jane Austen’s characters in ‘Persuasion’ written in 1818) in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

As Jane Austen wrote

“a very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better”

Henrietta speaking of Dr Shirley says that coming to Lyme

… “did him more good than all medicine he took; and, that being by the sea always makes him feel young again”.

The social life was all-important, but it was being by the sea, even with the hazards of the Cobb for young ladies, which drew society to Lyme.

Invasive animal and plant species

The natural life of the Dorset coast has also been influenced by the sea. Many of the recent arrivals in coastal waters have arrived via the ports, sometimes as plants trapped in ship’s rudder stems, sometimes as organisms in ballast water and sometimes as passengers on ship’s superstructures or hulls. Probably more important was the gradual spread of plants brought into England by landowners for their gardens. One of the earliest plantings of fuchsia was at Highcliffe and many other shrubs and trees were added to the estates. The largest impact on the landscape of the resorts was the widespread planting at Bournemouth, of pines, mostly Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) at the end of the eighteenth century, although Maritime Pine (Pinus pinaster) was imported from the Landes in 1805 to replace Scots Pines damaged by drought. The presence of pines subsequently became seen as one of the health-giving features of the new health resort.

The influence of the sea

The influence of the sea on Dorset commerce has often been simply one of access. More typically, the growth of trade along the Dorset coast came about because individuals or communities recognised the opportunities provided by access to the sea and its trading routes. It has been, however, a story of prosperity and decline depending on

Ease of access to sheltered harbours, inland routes and markets, and colonies across the ocean;

Perceptions of the influence of the sea on health –sometimes ships carried disease to the ports, but the sea became a source of improved health;

The politics of international commerce and local merchant communities.

The character of the present-day coast results from the combination of sheltered sites. commercial acumen and vigour, patronage, the control of much coastal land by a small number of estates which focussed on farming the landscape and limited access to the sea. The existing towns, with the particular exception of Bournemouth, provided a focus for new growth. However, even on the coast, places like Poole stuck to their existing roles as places of commerce and industry, and often struggled to attain former levels of prosperity.