Coastwise E-Book

Peter Firstbrook

• Herausgeber: Fernhurst Books Limited
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Coastwise examines the coastline of the British Isles as a dynamic environment and offers you an understandable explanation of how the coastline functions as a single entity. It is supported by hundreds of stunning photos and illustrations. It begins by exploring how the forces of nature combine to create its physical features (and continue to do so). This is a multifaceted story that involves ancient geology and powerful ocean forces. It then turns to the living nature of the coast, covering the unique plants, animals and other organisms whose interdependence keeps the coast alive and healthy. These amazing creatures are described and displayed in full colour. The third part of the book looks at how humans have interacted with the coast, using it for defence, commerce and leisure. It explores these aspects from the earliest times to the present day. The final section shows, for each coastal region, where the features discussed in the book can be observed and enjoyed, giving you a practical way of exploring the elements described in the book. All aspects of the coast are covered, making it essential reading – or a wonderful gift – for all those who spend time on Britain's coast. As Countryfile presenter, Tom Heap, says in his Foreword: "These pages are a practical love letter to Britain's waterfront and no seaside holiday home should be without them."

Leseprobe

For Paula

CONTENTS

Foreword

Author’s Note

Introduction: This Precious Stone Set In The Silver Sea

PART ONE: THE PHYSICAL COAST

1. Headlands & Cliffs

2. Beaches, Bays & Barrier Islands

3. Estuaries, Wetlands & Salt Marshes

4. Waves, Whirlpools, Surges & Tides

5. Coastal Rocks & Fossils

PART TWO: THE LIVING COAST

6. Plankton & Plants

7. Free Drifters & Bottom Dwellers

8. Molluscs & Crustaceans

9. The Carnivores

10. Coastal Birds

PART THREE: THE HUMAN COAST

11. The Coast As Defence

12. The Commercial Coast

13. The Leisure Coast

PART FOUR: DISCOVERING THE BRITISH COAST

London, Kent & Sussex

Hampshire, Dorset & Isle of Wight

Devon, Cornwall & Isles of Scilly

Somerset, Avon & Gloucestershire

South Wales

North Wales

Merseyside, Lancashire, Cumbria & Isle of Man

Northern Ireland

Western Scotland & The Western Isles

Eastern Scotland & The Northern Isles

Northumberland, Tyne & Wear & Durham

Yorkshire & Lincolnshire

Norfolk, Suffolk & Essex

Acknowledgements & Credits

Above: A common seal pup in the North Sea.

FOREWORD

This subtly passionate book is the perfect companion to anyone with an interest in the coast and, given our proximity to water and reliance on what it delivers us, that should be all of us.

In my work for Countryfile and Costing the Earth I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy many of the nation’s coasts and they always come with a ‘buzz’. It’s why as children on a trip to the seaside you strive to be the first to see the sea. My broadcasting work takes me there so often because they are a source of such good stories, an upwelling of issues: flooding, fishing, seaweed farming, smuggling and so many more. All to be found in these pages. As a sailor, scientist and programme maker Peter Firstbrook is clearly smitten by the bit of this country where solid meets liquid. And I get that. It is a dynamic strip of geography. A place of constant change and thrilling unpredictability. Benign golden sand or ship-shattering rock, computer-controlled container ports or snipe on a salt marsh, the author warms to them all and his feelings are infectious.

The breadth of this book is staggering. Peter has taken the whole of Britain and Northern Ireland and, a bit like a parent rightly unwilling to choose their favourite child, has decided to spread the love. You can learn about Roman naval harbours on the Cumbrian coast or kite surfing in Thurso.

The sections of the book loosely follow an epic chronology of the forces affecting our coast – geology with tales of hard basalt and soft sandstone; geography and the effects of erosion, currents and weather; biology with abundant sealife; and then humanity with our trade, fishing and fun. This all anchors the reader with the formative facts of the shoreline.

Coastwise is unafraid of a little light science and much the better for it. Knowledge helps us get so much more out of the coast. Understanding why it looks like it does and why animals and humans thrive in certain spots underpins our enjoyment. Want to know why those corrugations appear on a sandy beach? The answer’s in here. Want to know how to identify some edible seaweeds? The answer’s in here. Want to know where best to spot an Atlantic white-sided dolphin? You get the picture.

The author wants us to experience the edge of the ocean first-hand and preferably immersed. The book comes equipped not only with a guide to where to discover the best of the British coast but also how to behave safely when you get there. There are tips on navigation buoys, how to avoid or survive a rip current and even how to conserve body heat in cold water with the ‘Heat Escape Lessening Posture’ – HELP – a piece of learning for this reader for sure.

If you’d rather avoid all that perilous wet stuff you can relax with a dry gin and admire the crashing waves from aboard one of the twelve most spectacular coastal railway routes also listed in this book.

These pages are a practical love letter to Britain’s waterfront and no seaside holiday home should be without them.

Tom Heap, Countryfile Presenter

AUTHOR’S NOTE

One of my earliest recollections as a young boy is a family holiday to Cullercoats on the Northumberland coast. It was post-war Britain, and I have two particularly strong memories. The first was a dreary boarding house with peeling paper on the walls and a wilting aspidistra in the hall. This could not have been in stronger contrast to the aquarium on the seafront. Here was an exotic, weird and wonderful world of vibrant life and colour. I was mesmerised by what was living just off the beach.

That memory has never left me. I studied and researched marine sciences for nearly a decade, joined the BBC and made documentaries about oceanography, and spent much of my life sailing around Britain – and further afield when I could; I surfed as a student, and went scuba diving to see what life was like under the waves. In all this time, I never lost the excitement of that first eye-opening experience.

Here you are dazzled by the spectacular blue and orange cuckoo wrasse – every bit as colourful as any tropical reef fish, entranced by a dolphin breaking the surface, or enthralled by a puffin flying home with a mouthful of sand eels for its chick. You can gaze in awe as an Atlantic storm pounds a Cornish headland, or watch fascinated as a shoal of mackerel turn a Scottish sea loch into a feeding maelstrom as they force small prey to the surface – much to the delight of the hungry gannets circling above, who help themselves to an opportunistic take-away.

These are just some of the delights that our coastline has to offer. But what intrigues me even more is how all these events fit into a unique, interactive system. Tidal currents move plankton around, which are food for hungry fish; overhead, seabirds help themselves to an easy meal before returning to nest in the cliffs, which are formed by constant wave erosion over millions of years. These eroded cliffs are the source of the sand which is carried off by these very same currents to another part of the coastline to form beaches, bays and estuaries – all habitats for more marine life. And so the cycle continues…

The topics covered here are so broad that this book cannot be all-inclusive. Instead, it seeks to excite, inspire, and highlight the links between geology, oceanography (Part One), and biology (Part Two). For those readers interested to know more, there are excellent field guides available covering all areas of the marine world, whether your interest is in rocks, plants, seabirds or animals. Part Three looks at how our coastal nation has shaped our history, and how we have shaped our coastline. Finally, Part Four is a guide to where you can experience some of the features covered in this book.

This is our maritime heritage, and it is here to be enjoyed and appreciate by all.

Peter Firstbrook

September 2021

INTRODUCTION

THIS PRECIOUS STONE SET IN THE SILVER SEA

Swyre beach in Dorset, looking west towards Bat’s Head.

This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house…

From: Richard IIWilliam Shakespeare

If any organisation can be certain of the length of the British coastline, then it must be the Ordnance Survey. They have come up with a figure of 17,820km (11,070 miles) for Great Britain; add the length of the coastline of Northern Ireland, and the total for the United Kingdom is greater than the shorelines of Germany, France, Spain and Portugal combined.

Map makers have also identified 6,289 islands in Britain, most of them in Scotland. Admittedly only 803 are large enough to be properly digitised for map-making (the rest are recorded as ‘point features’), but you get the idea. Greece, by comparison, claims to have 6,000 islands and islets. Clearly, we are blessed with an astonishingly diverse coastline, and it comes wrapped up in a fascinating history.

The Green Bridge of Wales in Pembrokeshire; a sea arch carved out of 350-million-year-old limestone.

Nobody in Britain lives more than 120km (75 miles) from the ocean, and our closeness to the coast has shaped the lives of us all; we are an island nation, and the sea is in our blood. We have inherited a coastline that ranges from the granite cliffs of Cornwall rising like cathedrals from the shore, to the sandbanks of Morecombe Bay, spread as flat as a pool table for as far as the eye can see; from the white-knuckle surfing beaches of the Gower peninsula in Wales, to the rocky ice-scooped sea lochs of Scotland. We share a coastline which offers a fascinating diversity for walkers, sailors, fishermen, paddlers and indeed anyone who simply wants to sit on a beach and appreciate the wonderful world around them.

Yet nothing is ever static, and our coastline is the product of painfully slow change over hundreds of millions of years. Great continents have moved and collided, mountain ranges have risen, volcanoes have erupted, ice caps have advanced across the surface, tropical forests have covered the land and dinosaurs have roamed the countryside. Superimposed on this agonisingly slow change is the relentless daily bombardment of the shoreline by the power of waves, wind and currents. The result is a coastal landscape which is more diverse than anywhere else on the planet.

WIND, WAVES, TIDES & CURRENTS

The British islands are wrapped around the north-western edge of the European continent, and they are more exposed to the power of wind and waves coming in from the Atlantic Ocean than most of our continental neighbours. Watch any television weather forecast, and the likelihood is the presenter will be showing ‘the weather’ coming in from the west and south-west. This is the prevailing wind direction in Britain, and it affects the way our coastline is eroded and how the sediments (sands, muds, and stones) are moved along the coastline.

The Needles on the Isle of Wight under the stormy sky of a severe force 9 gale. It is during storm conditions like this that most coastal erosion occurs.

The size of waves, combined with the power of tidal currents, create a high-energy environment from the West Country, through Wales, to the west coast of Ireland and Scotland. Here, large waves driven by onshore prevailing winds have the power to constantly shape and re-form the shoreline, creating a region dominated by erosion.

On the east coast of Scotland and south into the North Sea, the prevailing winds are offshore, and the waves are generally more subdued, creating a low-energy environment. As a result, much of the coastline here is a low-lying region of mainly deposition.

In the real world, of course, things are never quite so clear cut and there is always a mixture of erosion and deposition along any stretch of shoreline. Even the most rugged coasts of Scotland, Wales and the West Country have sand and shingle bays set between rocky headlands.

Rhossili beach in Wales is typical of much of the west coast of the British Isles where rocky headlands are interspersed with magnificent sandy beaches.

What these contrasting coastlines offer is a wide variety of habitats to support marine wildlife. We have more than 300 species of fish in our coastal waters,26 species of marine mammals, 25 species of native seabirds and hundreds of different crustaceans, molluscs and marine plants – each adapted to survive in their particular habitat, whether it be the clifftops of a Hebridean island or a salt marsh in Norfolk.

Morecambe Bay, Lancashire, is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the United Kingdom and covers a total area of 310sq.km (120sq. miles).

THE ICE AGES

The other major influence which has shaped our coastline has been changing sea levels. Over the last century, the warming of our planet due to burning fossil fuels has caused sea levels to rise at an unprecedented rate. But sea level has always fluctuated over millions of years from natural causes, and this too has left its mark on the British coastline.

The period from 2.5 million years ago to around 11,700 years ago is called the Quaternary period by geologists, during which time the planet cooled; vast ice caps formed over the poles several kilometres thick, and they locked up so much water globally that sea level fell by as much as 130m (430ft) below today’s level.

Changes in global sea level in the last 2.5 million years.

As the planet cooled and moved into a glacial period, sea level fell, and the British coastline expanded. For thousands of years the region was no longer an island but connected to continental Europe by a land bridge across the shallow North Sea – this region has been called Doggerland. We are beginning to learn a lot more about this period of history because, in May 2013, archaeologists working on Happisburgh beach in Norfolk made an extraordinary discovery: human footprints made around 900,000 years ago – the oldest human footprints found anywhere in the world outside of Africa.

These impressions were found at low tide in sediment that was partially covered by beach sand, and storms had washed away the sediment and exposed the footprints. Because the sediment was soft and the footprints were found below high water, the incoming tide soon began to erode the evidence. The team worked frantically at low water, often in the pouring rain, and were able to record 3D images of all the markings; within two weeks, the footprints were lost.

These prehistoric people were early hunter-gatherers known as Homo antecessor, and they came from continental Europe, and migrated through Doggerland and settled in what is now East Anglia. Archaeologists also found the flint tools they left behind as they walked along the mudflats of a long-lost estuary. This was an important and exciting discovery, and evidence that early humans occupied northern Europe at least 350,000 years earlier than was previously thought.

The coastline of the British Isles looked very different during the last glacial period. Britain was joined to continental Europe by a land bridge called Doggerland, which allowed the migration of the first humans, around 900,000 years ago.

Ever since that very early migration into the British islands, people have continued to leave their mark on our coastline. In Poole harbour, for example, archaeologists have found evidence of ancient wooden piling going back more than 2,000 years, thought to be a quayside used by Iron Age traders who sailed from France to buy pottery, jewellery and other items made locally in Dorset. The Iron Age Celts also built fortified strongholds around our coastline, many of which can still be visited.

MORE RECENT HISTORY

In 55 BC and again in AD 43, the Romans invaded Britannia. They had a rocky start at first and could not handle the vagaries of British tides. But once they got their armies ashore and settled down, they built ports, towns and lighthouses around the coastline of England. The Romans were followed by the Saxons, the Vikings, then the Normans – all of them leaving a coastal legacy that we can still see today.

The origins of the Tower of London, for example, date back to 1066. It was built by William the Conqueror to protect London from attack from the sea (as well as keeping the rebellious citizens of London in line). Shakespeare’s Richard II even claimed the whole country was a defensive structure, a ‘fortress built by Nature for herself, Against infection and the hand of war...’ From Medieval castles to the Second World War concrete pillboxes, our coastline is littered with our attempts – some more successful than others – to prevent invasion.

The early Christians built monasteries and abbeys along the coast for very practical reasons – the sea gave them easy access to spread their gospel, and the coastline offered a bountiful supply of food. Whitby Abbey is one of the oldest Christian buildings in the country, and has stood solid for nearly 1,500 years, offering solace to believers and creative inspiration to Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula.

Whitby Abbey overlooks the fishing town, and dates from AD 657.

Nor has religious worship been restricted to grand buildings. At Beer on the south coast of Devon is a man-made underground complex about 1.6km (1 mile) west of the village. Roman artefacts have been found in the caverns, which suggests that limestone quarrying there goes back at least 2,000 years. After the Reformation, the caves were allegedly used as a meeting place for Catholics to secretly worship, safe from the prying eyes of the newly formed Protestant Church. By the nineteenth century, the caves had a more temporal use, and were appropriated by local smugglers to store contraband. The quarry is now part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage site.

Over the centuries, industry has also left its mark on the British coastline. Mining in Devon and Cornwall began more than 4,000 years ago during the early Bronze Age, and some archaeologists believe Phoenician metal traders even sailed from the eastern Mediterranean in search of tin. We know for certain that the Greek geographer, trader and explorer, Pytheas of Massalia, sailed to Britain in 325 BC and found a flourishing trade in this metal (which is essential to combine with copper to make bronze). The abundance of tin was also one of the main reasons for the Roman invasion of the British Isles, and the invaders also mined slate as early as AD 77 to create the roof of the coastal fort of Segontium – or Carnarvon as it is better known today.

Above: The engine houses at the Botallack submarine mine in west Cornwall, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2006. Early records can be traced back to the 1500s, but there is evidence of mining here during the Roman period, and even as far back as the Bronze Age.

With the Industrial Revolution, coal and iron were extracted in vast quantities, and many of these mines have left a lasting indentation along our coastline. Today, we are experiencing a new Industrial Revolution, and our coastline is now dotted with nuclear power stations, offshore windfarms, offshore gas and oil rigs, and a few (but not enough) generating stations using tidal power.

The London Array wind farm, one of the largest in the Thames estuary. There are now more than 30 offshore wind farms around Britain.

The British coastline has a history and heritage that has no equal. The shape and form of the coast can be traced back millions of years; superimposed on this is evidence of human occupation which goes back thousands of years.

Coastwise offers a fresh insight on this wonderful landscape, by looking at the British coastline as a complex but integrated system and opens a new window on understanding the fascinating shoreline around our islands.

PART 1

THE PHYSICAL COAST

Above: Cliffs near Kilt Rock on the north-east coast of the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The headland is named after the tartan-like pattern in the rocks, caused by vertical basalt columns and dolerite intruded into older sandstones.

CHAPTER 2

BEACHES, BAYS & BARRIER ISLANDS

Marsden beach (above) is one of many magnificent sandy beaches in the north-east of England. The sea stacks here are 255-million-year-old limestone. Souter lighthouse was the first to be designed to use AC electrical current, and in its day it was the most advanced lighthouse in the country.

A sandy beach on a sunny day is a huge playground, and it comes free to everyone. It gives endless pleasure to grown-ups and children alike, to surfers and swimmers, sailors and paddlers, fishermen, walkers and sunbathers. Beaches create memories too. We all recall idyllic days as a child messing around making sandcastles, and I am sure we also remember gritty sandwiches and wet towels full of sand. I suppose every silver lining has a cloud.

Pristine sandy beaches, however, are only part of the story. A ‘beach’ is really any foreshore where loose (unconsolidated) sediment has accumulted. The material can be made up from pretty much anything. On Skye, there is a brilliant white beach made from crushed algae, and at Seaham on the Durham coast the beach was once black from the spoil of coal mining. My own beach on the Isle of Wight is more eclectic – it comprises mud, sand, shingle, cobbles and even small fossils washed out from the clay cliffs.

The most obvious summer activities on beaches tend to obscure where the real action is happening – in the surf zone. Beaches are in perpetual motion: grain by grain, stone by stone, they are constantly changing their shape in response to wave and current action. Sandcastles collapse and footsteps disappear in no time. You need only spend an hour sitting on a sandy beach and you will see grains of sand blown by the wind, or rolled around in the surf; take a week, and you will see sandbars and wading pools created and disappear; spend a year, and dunes will grow then shrink; over decades and centuries, the beach landscape evolves on an even bigger scale.