The East Coast Martello Towers post has now been updated with our latest research, which makes it the most complete and up to date general reference on the east coast towers that you will find on the internet! We also collaborated with professional photographer Ian Giles, and many thanks to him for negotiating the necessary permissions and travelling up to Essex and Suffolk to photograph all of the remaining towers.

We now have two Martello towers featured posts:

• The East Coast Martello Towers (Essex and Suffolk)
• The South Coast Martello Towers (Kent and East Sussex)

Both posts feature a google map showing the locations of the towers, and photography of all the towers (still have a few gaps on the South Coast article which will be filled soon…).

Last year we posted photos on the main UK Shore site of the 1926 wreck of the SS Falcon which is visible at low tide in Langdon Bay, Dover. It was with some interest then that I came across archive video footage of the event as it happened in 1926. Thanks to JohnVaughan for posting this on Youtube.

On a later trip to the site I created a 360 degree panorama of the wreck site which I would highly recommend site visitors having a look at (click on the image to the right).

Langdon Bay and the wreck are accessible to the public, but just a warning that the zig-zag cliff path is VERY steep and although there is a hand rail, make sure you wear proper walking shoes/boots and don’t go unless the weather has been dry. Access to the beach then requires a climb down a 20 foot ladder…

Also of interest in Langdon Bay are a set of World War II searchlight positions embedded in the cliff  (near the ladder down to the beach). Again, this was a subject of a 360 degree panorama, please have a look…

The East Coast towers were built around the same time as the South Coast towers starting in 1809. The South Coast towers were built to prevent Napolean’s armies reaching London from the south, and similarly the East Coast towers were intended to prevent the French from reaching London from the East and North. The East Coast lacks the large chalk cliffs of the South Coast and so the flat lands would have made a good alternative landing place for Napolean’s planned invasion despite the longer sea journey, especially if the low countries could have been used for the launch of the invasion.

The East Coast towers were built larger and more heavily armed than the South Coast towers, as a defence against the larger ships that the French might have used if they had chosen the East Coast as the invasion point. In addition to the towers, there were the pre-existing gun batteries, and there were plans to block the entrances to the rivers Blackwater, Colne and Orwell with barges. Read the rest of this entry »

English Coast is no more, we have decided to re-brand to UK Shore.

The main reason for this was feedback asking why we couldn’t cover all of the British Isles, and we were indeed a bit constrained by the site title! So we will be introducing features on Wales, Scotland, Northern Island, Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands soon…

Other reasons were to get a slightly shorter domain name for ease of typing, and also the English-coast domain only included the .net version, and not the .com or .co.uk. We have a better hold on all variations of uk-shore.com.

The RSPB’s Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project is likely to go ahead after an agreement has been reached between the RSPB and Crossrail to use material excavated while digging the cross-London rail link to create the huge wildlife reserve.

Subject to a planning application made by the RSPB to Essex County Council, the project will create 150 hectares of mudflats, 190 hectares of saltmarsh, 75 hectares of shallow saltwater lagoons, and an additional raised area of saltmarsh in anticipation of future sea level rises. About eight miles of coastal walks and cycle routes will also be created as part of the scheme.

The saltmarshes, and mudflats will attract rare coastal birds such as spoonbills and black winged stilts, and potentially even Kentish plovers not seen in the UK for over 50 years.

Graham Wynne, Chief Executive of the RSPB, is quoted by Wildlife Extra:
“This is a fantastic agreement that one year ago, we could never have imagined. Wallasea will be the RSPB’s most ambitious and innovative habitat recreation scheme. It will create a huge new area for birds and other wildlife whose existing habitats are being damaged and lost because of climate change. This is a ground-breaking deal between one of the UK’s leading enterprises and an environmental charity. It is absolutely wonderful news for wildlife.”

Crossrail main works should begin in 2010, with tunnel boring starting in 2011. The RSPB’s work on Wallasea is expected to take between five and ten years.

Source: Wildlife Extra

Up to 400 bird watchers headed for the Berry Head nature reserve in Brixham this week to see the very rare Sardinian warbler. The bird, blown off course while heading back to the Mediterranean for the winter, is thought to be a female. The bird’s call is distinctive, fast and rattling.
Park manager Nigel Smallbones, of the Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust, is quoted by This is South Devon website: “It has created a lot of interest. This is only the third or fourth sighting ever on the UK mainland, although they have been spotted occasionally on the Scilly Isles. It may have been brought here unexpectedly by prevailing winds. There were hundreds of people here at the weekend, trying to catch a glimpse and take pictures.”

The Sardinian warbler birds are visitors to the Mediterranean, but are also common in Turkey and Northern Asia.

Source: This is South Devon

An Alder Flycatcher bird, never before seen in Britain, has arrived near Land’s End, Cornwall.

The bird, thought to be either an Alder Flycatcher or Willow flycatcher, attracted birdspotters from all over the UK to Nanjizal, Cornwall on Thursday. The small bird with a wingspan of only 8-9 inches is normally to be found in the wetlands of northern South America, where it usually winters.

Expert ringers have received a licence to catch the bird briefly in a net for further study before it is released back into the wild.

Sources: BBC News Cornwall, Times  Online

The historic Clavell Tower in Dorset was due to reopen on August 29 after being rebuilt brick by brick to stop it falling in to the sea. The monument was built by the Rev John Richards Clavell in 1830 as an observatory and folly, with four storeys, including a basement, and a distinctive Tuscan colonnade.

The tower was situated close to the cliff edge at Kimmeridge Bay on the World Heritage Jurassic Coast, but an 18-month project has seen the historic monument dismantled by specialist builders. The tower was then rebuilt 82ft inland using as much of the original materials as possible. The leaseholders, the Landmark Trust launched an appeal in 2004 to raise money to save the tower, later securing a £436,000 lottery grant. As with their other properties, they plan to make the tower available for holiday lets.

Peter Pearce, director at the trust, said: “The tower’s future is secure and it can now resume its role as sentinel on this stretch of coastline. Its familiar silhouette will continue to welcome the many thousands of people who visit and walk in Kimmeridge Bay each year.”

Source: Dorset Echo, The Independent

The government has approved a plan to site one of the largest offshore windfarms in the UK off the Cumbrian coast at Duddon Sands (Walney Island). The developers Morecambe Wind say the turbines will power 372,000 homes.

Energy Secretary John Hutton has also approved updated plans for a separate 30 turbine windfarm near the island. He said: “These windfarms demonstrate our commitment to dramatically increase the amount of energy we generate from renewable sources, helping to cut the UK’s carbon emissions and secure our energy supplies.”.

Source: BBC News

The RSPB is to take radical action to save one of it’s most popular reserves from the sea.

Titchwell Marsh on the north Norfolk coast faces inundation by the North Sea and so to protect the future of the reserve the decision has been taken to allow the sea to reclaim part of the reserve in order to save the remainder. The current 30-year-old sea walls are being slowly eroded. If the waters were to break through the current defenses then the entire reserve, which is a mix of brackish and fresh water marshes and reedbed, will be lost along with the habitat for rare breeding birds like the bittern and marsh harrier.

Under the proposed scheme, the sea wall will be moved back behind the present brackish marsh, which will be allowed to return to tidal saltmarsh.

This will allow new and improved sea defences to protect the fresh water marsh and the reedbeds with their  breeding birds from the rising tides. At the same time visitor facilities will be enhanced and it is hoped the newly created saltmarsh will become a visitor attraction in its own right.

Rob Coleman, the reserve’s manager, is quoted on the news section of the RSPB website: “I know this is a huge change for Titchwell and for the very many people who share our deep love for the reserve, but the need to go ahead with this scheme was clear.

“We faced a stark choice between sacrificing the brackish marsh or losing the whole site to the sea.

“In drawing up these changes we have listened hard to local people and to visitors. As a result, the new-look site will keep and improve on all the things that make Titchwell special for them.”

Sources:
RSPB website (news)