Reclaiming Doggerland Page 5

Haarlemmermeer and the beach at Scheveningen

17 January 2014

After spending a number of months looking for long-term accommodation near the North Sea, we eventually found a place in East Frisia and were set to leave Berlin in mid December. The landlady, however, decided against our staying a few weeks before we were due to move, meaning we had suddenly to rethink our plans.

We arranged to take a short holiday near the Dutch coast, so we could at least celebrate the new year by the sea.

A removals company transported our things to a cheap storage unit in Brandenburg, and following Christmas in Thuringia, we spent a long but pleasant day driving across Germany to our short-let apartment in The Hague. The next morning we went to Schiphol airport where we met Alessandra.

As we drove there, I was reminded by the road signs that the airport is on the Haarlemmermeer polder, which had been reclaimed in the late 1840s.

On the morning of the first, we considered taking part in the New Year’s dive at nearby Scheveningen, where the locals mark the occasion by plunging themselves into the icy waters of the North Sea. But Alessandra asked for my assistance with some paperwork she urgently had to complete, and we were unable to make it to the beach until dusk in the late afternoon.

At the top of the Keizerstraat, I recognised the old church from paintings I knew by both Willem and his brother Adriaen van de Velde.

I was curious to see the new coastal reinforcements, upon which a new esplanade had been constructed. The fortifications had been strengthened against flooding with a taller dyke and a widened beach.

We walked for a while along the sea front so I could photograph the new boulevard. I had read that it followed the lines of the dunes that were once here.

As the light outside was diminishing, it was not long before I gave up on the photos. We went into a cafe in the shopping arcade, where we had a drink before heading back into the city.

Posted in Perambulations | Tagged airports, Haarlemmermeer, lighthouses, North Holland, Scheveningen, South Holland | Leave a response

Hoo peninsula

18 June 2013

Tom and I were in England and had stayed the night in Somerset with Alessandra. In the late morning, we drove across to the Hoo peninsula, as I wanted to visit Cliffe fort. When we arrived at Cliffe, we parked by St Helen’s church, assuming the way to the fort would be marked by signs.

We wandered for a while by the marshes and climbed up to look over the pools into the Thames Estuary. I had read that much of the marshland here had been drained by Henry Pye in the late 1800s, not only to increase farmland but also to reduce the incidence of malaria (or “marsh fever” as it was known).

At one point we thought we had found the fort, but this turned out to be some derelict lime kilns. We soon realised it was unlikely that we would just happen upon it. Not only was it not signposted, but it was also not clearly marked on any contemporary maps we looked at. It was as if it had already sunk.

We managed to get an internet connection and Alessandra found some directions on her phone, which said that we should drive a little way out of the village.

It was now early evening, and I was beginning to worry about losing light. We eventually found the route from Salt Lane along a private road. Following the conveyor belt, we walked toward the gravel works at Cliffe Creek. At the end was the fort: waterlogged and unmaintained, it had been left to fall into estuary.

We climbed up on to the Saxon Shore Way, where we saw the beached wreck of the Hans Egede; I later learned that this was a Danish ship and was named after the Norwegian missionary who had brought Lutheran Christianity to the Inuit people of Greenland.

By the jetties in front of the fort, we found the torpedo launch. This was built in the 1890s for the Brennan torpedo, which is often referred to as the world’s first guided missile. The only report I know of a torpedo being fired here and hitting a vessel was in 1901, when it hit the ketch WS Flower during trials. The captain, his wife and crew were able to get into a boat they were towing and survived.

Tom found a way on to the fort, using a makeshift platform over the fence. From the top, we could see into its flooded interior.

Before driving to London, we had dinner at a pub in the nearby village of Cooling. Cooling is known for its connection to Lollardry, and its churchyard is said to be the setting for the opening chapter of Great Expectations. Dickens wrote of five “little stone lozenges”, although here there are thirteen marking the graves of children from the Comport family, mostly thought to have died of malaria in the late 18th century.

Posted in Perambulations | Tagged forts, Hoo peninsula, Kent, Thames Estuary | Leave a response

Isle of Thanet – Part two

18 September 2012

We drove past the mouth of the River Stour, hoping to see what was left of the Richborough power station. This had been demolished in March and there was predictably not much to see.

However, we did find the hamlet of Ebbsfleet, where Hengest and Horsa first arrived in Britain. Ebbsfleet is also thought to be the location the Battle of Wippedesfleot in c 466, the final of three battles in Kent where Hengest led the Anglo-Saxons against the Britons. After the bloodshed on both sides, fighting abated for some years.

The hamlet was on a peninsula of the Isle of Thanet – then still an island – until the middle ages. Ebbsfleet Lane marks the line of that peninsula. The surrounding land is the silted-up Wantsum Channel, which roughly followed the line of the Stour to Plucks Gutter and up to Reculver.

Driving across the once seascape, we continued down the Ramsgate Road and turned off to get to Richborough and its Roman fort. As it was evening, we were only allowed a brief visit before it closed. In the small museum, we learned that the fort was established when the Romans landed here in AD 43 and was later used by Saxons after the Roman retreat. The coastline is now some distance away.

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Isle of Thanet – Part one

15 September 2012

As I was in England for the first time since last year, it seemed appropriate that I would visit Pegwell Bay.

Alessandra drove us from London and along the Thanet Way. Before we went on to the beach, we had lunch at the Sir Stanley Gray bar of the Pegwell Bay hotel. The pub was previously known as Moonlighters because of its connection to the smugglers who would use the tunnels through the cliff faces.

Pegwell Bay was a popular resort for Victorians. Its pleasure pier was dismantled, but we could still see the remains of wooden jetties and the coast guard station.

With its chalk cliffs formed under subtropical seas and since shaped by erosion, the bay was interesting not only for geologists, but many would come to collect shells and fossils. I read that Charles Darwin frequented the area.

William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 (?1858-60)
Visible in the sky is Donati’s comet.

The beaches here are famously the site of three important landings in Britain. The Romans in 43AD, the Saxons in 449AD and Saint Augustine who brought Christianity in 597AD.

As we walked along the coastline, I noticed a significant number of birds in the salt marshes. It was largely unrecognisable that much of this area was based on landfill.

We drove up a little to Cliffsend, and saw the remains of Ramsgate International Hoverport, which once linked to Calais. The hoverport was demolished in 1987 (the remaining cross-Channel hoverport in Dover was closed in 2005).

Just beside the port, we stopped for a while by the replica Viking longship, Hugin. This was a gift from Denmark in 1949 to mark the 1500th anniversary of the landing of Hengist and Horsa – the brothers who led the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. It was sailed across the North Sea to Broadstairs before being moved to its current location. I vaguely remember visiting the boat as a child.

Tate: Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858

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