Homes for a Changing Climate by Will Anderson

Author:Will Anderson
Format: epub
Publisher: Green Books (Perseus)

Similar stories can be told of villages all along the Norfolk coastline. Newton Cross once lay beyond the village of Hopton, which now fronts the sea. East of Winterton, the village of Ness once stood on a headland where a lighthouse was maintained; village, headland and lighthouse have now all disappeared. Great Waxham was once paired with Little Waxham but the little sibling is no more. Seaward of Happisburgh, the village of Whimpwell boasted a manor inhabited by the Abbot of St Benet; now Happisburgh itself is falling into the sea. As at Shipden, the church of the ancient village of Eccles was the last building to go; the tower standing mournfully on the beach until it was finally toppled by a storm in 1895.7

The modern residents of the Norfolk coast are ambivalent about this history. In the words of one local activist, “we can’t hold back Mother Nature, but we can make it tough for her”.8 This was effectively government policy in much of the latter half of the twentieth century, when substantial defences were built to protect the coastal communities of East Anglia - a policy in part driven by the experience of the devastating 1953 floods when thousands lost their lives. In some vulnerable areas, concrete sea walls were built. Elsewhere, beaches were protected by wooden revetments and, latterly, mounds of Scandinavian granite boulders. By the end of the century, when all these defences were beginning to show their age, public policy had changed its tune. The idea that it is possible with modern engineering to 'hold the line' in perpetuity has been discredited. Although some stretches of the coastline will continue to be protected, at least for the next 50 years, many others will not. Adaptation and “risk management” are now the dominant themes of coastal erosion policy.9

Left: The cliff-top village of Happisburgh, Norfolk, viewed through neglected and ineffective defences.

Right: The church tower of the lost village of Eccles, prior to its reclamation by the sea.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.