Salthouse marshes, history and birdlife

The earlier clay bank with most significance to Salthouse was the bank built in about 1650 which encloses the Cley Marshes, the area that is now the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s reserve. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, a major channel around the north side of the Cley enclosure connected Salthouse to Blakeney harbour and beyond. Salthouse people still had access to the sea, and the sea continued to have tidal access to the marshes. All this changed dramatically on a stormy night in 1845. That night, crashing waves spread the shingle southward and filled in the channel, cutting off the village’s access to the sea. With any argument about whether or not to enclose the marshes effectively redundant, it is easy to see that the reclaimers saw the chance to take the marshes from the sea once and for all. To prevent saltwater, that could come through and over the shingle, from spoiling the intended grazing, a clay bank was proposed running the length of the marshes just inland of the shingle. This bank was built between 1851 and 1855, and the reclamation it permitted was formalised by the Inclosure Award of 1853. The map of the Award (above) is curiously silent about the nature of the ground being enclosed. It divides the marsh into neat rectangular blocks without reference to the creeks, sand flats and pools which persist even today. At that time water on the marshes had no easy means of escape, and the area must have been, for most part, a large brackish lagoon.

The Landscape, History and Birdlife of the Salthouse Marshes by Steve Harris
Salthouse’s defining landscape-features, the marshes and the shingle bank, have for thousands of years been shaped by entirely natural processes. The shingle, now thought to be largely glacial in origin has, in fits and starts and averaging about 0.75 metres a year, rolled in towards the rising land. At the same time Blakeney Point has extended, as sand from the west has built up at its tip. At the start of the 1500s the view from the village green would have appeared little changed from that when the settlement was first established, and reminiscent of the scene from Blakeney Quay now. The shingle ridge would have been nearly a quarter of a mile further away and the intervening land, where cattle now graze on grass pastures, would have been dissected by creeks and channels and covered by saltmarsh plants. At least three more ‘eyes’ would have been visible: Great Eye, with Flat Eye beyond, and Rough Brough Hill (Ruburgh Hill) more or less opposite Walsey Hill. On spring tides, Gramborough Hill would have been an island, as all the marshes would have been flooded. Towards the landward edge of the saltmarsh, vigorous spring activity would probably have added sufficient fresh water to the estuary for there to have been a reed fringe to the rising land, extending for a distance out onto the marsh. And so it would be today, if Dutch embankers had not set about claiming land from the estuary.		The earlier clay bank with most significance to Salthouse was the bank built in about 1650 which encloses the Cley Marshes, the area that is now the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s reserve. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, a major channel around the north side of the Cley enclosure connected Salthouse to Blakeney harbour and beyond. Salthouse people still had access to the sea, and the sea continued to have tidal access to the marshes. All this changed dramatically on a stormy night in 1845. That night, crashing waves spread the shingle southward and filled in the channel, cutting off the village’s access to the sea. With any argument about whether or not to enclose the marshes effectively redundant, it is easy to see that the reclaimers saw the chance to take the marshes from the sea once and for all. To prevent saltwater, that could come through and over the shingle, from spoiling the intended grazing, a clay bank was proposed running the length of the marshes just inland of the shingle. This bank was built between 1851 and 1855, and the reclamation it permitted was formalised by the Inclosure Award of 1853. The map of the Award (above) is curiously silent about the nature of the ground being enclosed. It divides the marsh into neat rectangular blocks without reference to the creeks, sand flats and pools which persist even today. At that time water on the marshes had no easy means of escape, and the area must have been, for most part, a large brackish lagoon. Next page