Through East Anglia in a Motor CarVincent, James Edmund
General
Through East Anglia in a Motor Car
Vincent, James Edmund
Norfolk (England) -- Description and travel; Suffolk (England) -- Description and travel
No apology is offered for having conveyed some information concerning
Harwich and its yachting memories of the past in the words of a pleasant
gossip who has passed away. But my old friend was not terse, and he had a
rooted objection while he lived, which shall be respected still, to
curtailment by another hand, and so, if we want to proceed with our little
cruise upon wheels of a single day and to finish it, let us take luncheon
at Harwich, without throwing raspberry tarts at one another, and go on our
way. Luncheon over, not being of the type of motorists who cannot endure to
stand on their own feet or to be at rest for a moment, let us look across
the estuary to Landguard Point and, with the aid of the books, think a
little over the astonishing metamorphosis brought about, partly by the
sweep of the tides, partly perhaps by the hand of man, not thoughtless so
much as too confident of knowledge, in the outlines of this part of the
coast during historical times.
"Murray" sets one thinking and no more. "Landguard Fort (mounting 36 guns),
on a spit of land now joined to the Suffolk coast (it is said that the
Stour once passed on the north side of it), was built in the reign of James
I." To say thus much and no more is merely to excite curiosity without
sating it. To consult Lord Avebury (_The Scenery of England_) is to obtain
satisfaction on the general problem and to learn that details are of quite
minor significance. He who has once realized the character, the untiring
and irresistible, but in some respects irregular force, of the influences
at work, will soon see how the outline of the coast may vary from year to
year, even from day to day, in the future as in the past. "One of the
finest spreads of shingle in the United Kingdom is on the left side of the
Ore or Alde in Suffolk, reaching north-eastward to Aldeburgh, and which is
still increasing by the deposit of shingle at its south-western end. A
chart of the time of Henry VIII shows distinctly that the mouth of Orford
Haven was then opposite Orford Castle, whilst a chart of the time of
Elizabeth shows a considerable south-westerly progression. When the
Ordnance map was made (published 1838), North Weir Point, as the end of the
spit is called, was about east of Hollesley. It" (the spread of shingle, of
course) "consists of a series of curved concentric ridges, or 'fulls,'
sweeping round and forming a projecting cape or 'Ness' in advance of the
general coastline." Seen in diagram, from a bird's-eye point of view, these
"fulls" closely resemble a vastly long and narrow field ridged up for the
reception of Cyclopean potatoes. (In passing, the bird's-eye view,
involving an effort of the imagination, is out of date, and there is every
prospect that very soon not one man or woman in a thousand, but a large
percentage, will be in a position to speak without affectation of tracts of
country as seen from a balloon.) This particular bird's-eye prospect,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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