VANISHING ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

VANISHING ENGLAND.

HOW THE SEA ON THE EAST COAST

IS SWALLOWING UP TOWNS,

Inhabitants of inland towns have no conception of the anxiety experienced by the dv.'ellers on the English coast in consequence of the certain and, in some cases, the rapid disappearance of their homes through the inroads of the sea.

Nowhere, perhaps, is this so apparent as along the eas^t coast. Take, for instance, the pretty and historic village of Dunwich. Though now only a very small place, it was in former times a large city, the capital of East Anglia and the see of the diocese. It held no inconsiderable place among the commercial cities of the kingdom.

It had eight parish churches and a great number of chapels and monastic institutions, all of which, except the ruins of All Saints' Church, the chapel of St. James' Hospital, and the Maison Dieu, have been washed away.

An old chronicle records, with reference to this particular neighbourhood, that a wood, called East Wood, or the King's Forest, extended several miles south-east of the town, but many years ago it was destroyed by the sea. The land must have stretched out far, and have formed the southern boundary of the Bay of Southwold.

In an irruption of the sea in 1739 the roots of a great number of trees were exposed. This appeared to be the extremity of some wood which was in all probability part of this submerged forest.

'The sea,' continues the historian, 'agitated by violent east or north-east winds, continued its conquests quite to the town, for whose preservation Henry 111., In the sixth year of his reign (1222),-not only required assistance of others, but himself granted £200 towards making a fence to check its inroad.

'In the first year of Edward 111. (1327) the old port was rendered entirely useless, and before the twenty-third of the same King (1305) a great part of the town, containing upwards of 400 houses, with certain shops and windmills, Had fallen a ■prey to the waves.'

By the end of the eighteenth century this ancient and historic town had virtually disappeared. Passing from Dunwich, going southward, there is the small town of Aldeburgh. Here again the sea has made great encroachments, and during the last century has overthrown many houses, together with the market-place and cross. A plan of the town in 1559 proves it to have been at that time of considerable size. Perhaps at )no place along the east coast has the sea been fought with so much pluck and determination as at Southwold. This pleasant and rapidly rising little seaside resort, like its neighbours, was once a, town of importance, though not of such antiquity as Dunwich. Since the Domesday survey, the sea has gained upon the coast one mile one furlong nineteen perches. Within the last two or three years it Is estimated that about half an acre oi' land has been washed away. Houses which formerly stood some distance from the cliff are now quite close to the edge and in peril of being swept to destruction. Many thousands of pounds have been spent, and many more are to be spent, on sea defence works, but the inhabitants are very pessimistic as to the result. It is quite possible, notwithstanding- that efforts being made to combat the, waves, that many of the present inhabitants may live to see Southwold numbered with the towns that have been but are no more.