CHAPTER III.
THE GERMAN OCEAN—ITS GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION—ITS TIDES—DISASTROUS EFFECTS IN COMBINATION WITH GALES OF WIND FROM THE NORTH-WEST ON DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE COAST UNDER CONSIDERATION—EXAMPLES.
THE workings of Nature itself, under the control of an Allwise and Omnipotent Being, ever exhibit a restorative as well as a destructive power. Its laws and constitution being no where directly revealed to us, are only to be inferred from the inspection of particular facts, obtained from observation and experiment, the only trust-worthy guides to the knowledge of Nature. Let us inquire—first, the cause of the German Ocean gaining upon the Norfolk coast? secondly, whether every portion is the subject of such visitation, attended with similar results? and thirdly, whether art can arrest its progress?
The German Ocean, from its being intersected with numerous shoals of sand, some of immense length and breadth, presents a greater variation in the tides and currents than probably any other ocean in the world; and from its exposure to variable and violent winds, renders the navigation extremely dangerous. Its extent in area is about two millions of square miles, and is confined within its narrowest limits between England and Holland, and there in consequence the tides rise highest. It opens into the Atlantic on the north, and communicates with the English Channel by the Straits of Dover, and with the Baltic Sea by the Scaggerac and Cattegat. It may be considered as divided into two parts by the Dogger Bank, which traverses it in almost all its width, and a strong tide runs from north to south, {32} which is much increased by north and north-west winds.
From the earliest records to the present time, that portion of the coast extending from Cromer to Winterton-ness has been most subjected to the ravages of the ocean; lands have been swept away, buildings of considerable value have been swallowed up, and notwithstanding every effort hitherto made, the sea continues to advance in the interior as little satiated as before. The line of coast is extremely favourable to its rapacity, presenting, as it does, the appearance of a cape, and the different strata composing the cliffs are generally of too yielding a nature to resist its influence, even under ordinary circumstances.—The Hasborough Sands, extending from Winterton, to or a little beyond Bacton, must, from their dimensions and abrupt elevation, be a source of considerable mischief, confining a vast body of water within a narrow limit, which, when increased and disturbed by gales of wind from the north-west, upon a spring tide, urges the waves against the cliffs with a greater or less velocity, and with a force not only sufficient to sweep away large quantities of the earth, which, from the perpendicularity of the cliffs, is deposited at their base, but actually to undermine them to a considerable extent.
Numerous instances can be adduced where the current has taken away twenty-one yards of land from the interior in three tides; and it was computed when the present Inn was built in Lower Sherringham, near Cromer, in 1805, that it would require seventy years for the sea to reach the spot, the mean loss of land being calculated, from previous observations, to be somewhat less than one yard annually; the distance between the house and the sea was fifty yards, but no allowance was made for the slope of the ground being from the sea, in consequence of which the waste was naturally accelerated every year as the cliff grew lower, there being at each succeeding period less matter to remove when portions of equal area fell down. Between the years 1824 and 1829, no less than seventeen yards were swept away, and the distance between the house and the edge of the cliff at this time is only from eight to ten yards.
The whole site of ancient Cromer {33a} now forms part of the German Ocean, the inhabitants having gradually retreated inland to the present situation, from whence the sea still threatens to dislodge them. The locality of this portion of the coast, the scarcity of sea beach material in the offing, the bed of the ocean of a rocky character, and the beach presenting nearly a level approaching a dead flat render it peculiarly liable to its invasion.
At Trimingham {33b} upwards of fifty acres of land have been removed during the last sixty years, and on one occasion four acres and a half were taken away in one tide.
The property belonging to Mr. Wheatley, at Mundesley, {34a} has become considerably reduced in extent and value, and has only been preserved to the present time by substantial walls erected next the sea, and numerous piles of wood driven into the sand beyond them: but what renders it most disheartening is, the sea has excavated the cliff at their extremity; and the probability is, should a heavy lasting gale of wind ensue from the north-west upon a spring tide, they, with perhaps the greater portion of the property, will be swept away by the water intruding behind and between them. Land attached to the estate of S. Bignold, Esq., adjoining Walcot {34b} Gap, previous to 1839, was rapidly taken away.
At Hasborough, {34c} the sea has encroached upwards of one hundred and seventy yards during the last sixty years, and it is calculated the church will be engulphed in the Ocean before the middle of the ensuing century.
The ancient villages of Shipden, {34d} Whimpwell, {34e} and Keswick {34f} have entirely disappeared, and nearly the whole of Eccles. {34g} A monument, however, still remains in the ruined tower of the old church, which is half buried in the dunes of sand. These have been fast encroached upon since 1839, laying bare the foundations of dwellings, the chancel end of the church, with a portion of a wall supposed to have surrounded the church-yard. The upper part of the buildings had evidently been removed previous to the foundations having been buried under the sand.
Hills of blown sand, between Eccles and Winterton, {34h} extending to Yarmouth, have barred up and excluded the tide for many centuries from the mouths of several small estuaries; but there are records of nine breaches, from twenty to one hundred and twenty yards wide, having been made through these, by which immense damage was done to the low grounds in the interior. One of the most remarkable occurred in the year 1792, on which occasion a body of water passed through between Horsey {35a} and Waxham, {35b} extending beyond Hickling, a village situated three miles inland, which, uniting with the fresh water contained in a large lake, termed the Hickling broad, destroyed all the fish. The injury the land sustained in the immediate neighbourhood was very considerable; upon one farm a loss of upwards of three hundred pounds was experienced, and years passed by before the land recovered its former fertility. The effluvia arising from the subsidence or sinking of the water filled the air with malaria of the worst description. Intermittent and typhoid fevers of a most formidable character prevailed, so that many an individual was brought to a premature grave through this catastrophe.