OLD PORT ON THE SEA AGAIN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 13074, 14 May 1913, Page 9

OLD PORT ON THE SEA AGAIN.

WHAT THE GREAT GAXE DID FOR WINOHELSEA. j LONDON, April 2. England is by way of being endowed, for a time at least, with the possibility 'of a new seaport m consequence of the gale last week-end. The ancient Sussex town of Winchelsea is no longer on the marsh: It is on. the sea once more, just as it T^as when William the Conqueror 'stepped ashore m 1066. \Vhen the tide w high, the sea rolls m ovex the famous sheep-fattening marsh lands. ■„.':. On Saturday night last wbien the. storm was high, the sea washed' away the mud wall which the Commissioners of Pett level had built alone 1 the beach, three or four miles across the marsh up to Old Wincfoelsea. At Pett the old, coastguard cottage, inhabited by Mi; Osborne, a •worker On the marsh, was' invaded. Mrs Osborne and ;her five children were m great danger, for her husband was away at the time. Fortunately a couple of London solicitors who were down for the' week-end were able to get to the cottage along a bank, and they and Mrs Osborne waded through the sea and carried the children to safety. The cat was afterwards rescued from the mantelpiece, and the fowls took refuge on the roof. Dozens of sheep were drowned on the marsh, and / many ' were rescued < by a boat.

Winchelsea has known other inundations. In 1250 the sea swept m and 1 destroyed 300 houses, so that a new town had to be built.

Once again, m 1287, all the flat land between Pett and Winchelsea was washed over, and the town was again destroyed. After that the present Winchelsea was begun. Among those who work on the marsh, or did until the inundation — there is much, indigation that the commissioner only built a mud wall to keep out so fierce a foe as the sea, and there is a growing call for vigorous measures to be taken to recover the land which the- sea has stolen and to restore the marsh to the fat lambs.