of the Salthouse Marshes Page 2
by Steve Harris
The sea lies close behind the present shingle bank
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The Landscape, History and
Birdlife of the Salthouse Marshes Page 2 by Steve Harris |
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The remains of
this ill-fated attempt at keeping out the sea, can still be seen today
running east from the Cley East Bank just behind the shingle. Sometimes,
after a scouring tide has removed shingle from the beach, the remains of
the bank can be seen on the seaward side of the shingle ridge, with the
grass that used to grow on its sides still visible, browned and preserved.
The mistake that the Victorian embankers made was to fail to realise that,
in an overtopping event, the space between the shingle and the new bank
of 1853, would soon be filled and seawater would spill over and down the
back of the clay bank and erode a breach. So, by 1861 or 62, the bank was
destroyed in many places, and the money raised for its construction completely
wasted. As a result, the village’s common land on
the marshes, which had been mortgaged for the purpose of raising funds for
the project, was lost to Salthouse residents.
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Once more the marshes became a brackish lagoon, and a
noted bird haunt: a source of food for local people, and of specimens for
Victorian collectors.
As any flood or seepage water had to drain out through the Cley marshes — from the 1860s until the 1920s when the New Cut middle drain was improved — it is likely that the marshes would have been more or less totally flooded in winter and partially so in summer, with islands and a few more extensive dry areas. The slow drainage of Salthouse was made worse in 1921 when shingle infilled the Glaven’s course round the north of Blakeney Freshes. At this stage Cley marshes too became permanently flooded. An account at the time eloquently describes Salthouse ‘Broads’, as they had become known after the disastrous 1921 flood: ‘Such a sight as was witnessed here during the last summer could surely not have been equalled elsewhere in the British Isles. With numerous small islands dotted about on a shallow inland sea or broad . . . here indeed was a spot such as many birds must have been on the lookout for . . .’ |
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