“Records in the history of the coastline”

In this chapter, it is only intended to give the reader a brief history of the problem of the defences of the Suffolk Coast line. A comprehensive record would entail a vast amount of research among old books and documents for which I could find insufficient time: and I fear that having gone to such length, the detailed result might only be of interest to a limited few. Therefore my attempt will comprise a few snatches from records, sufficient to be of interest to the general reader; more especially to those who know the Suffolk coast.

With little imagination, it is obvious that the present coastline is ‘comparatively’ new. An ordnance survey map of the coast, if taken every ten years would continue to show that the sea is a master in its own domain and bent on further conquests. For hundreds of years the sea has been gnawing at the coast in some places, whilst in others such as Minsmere and Easton Bavants, the river mouths have silted up. A Minsmere man has taken up this advantage and enclosed the land from the sea – but its enclosure is for such periods as the sea decides in its periodic combined revolution with the north west wind.

The low lying marshlands are comparatively new additions to our land mass and have generally been enclosed from the rivers and the sea during the past four hundred years. In the 16th century, the Dutch were already busy on sea defences and many of their early engineers came over to this country to advise and assist with the work of building sea walls – and still do.

All the river walls which enclose the marshes of the Stour, Orwell, Deben, Ore, Alde, Blyth and the Breydon Water are therefore protecting land which has been won from tidal waters. Throughout the centuries, these marshes [Page 121] have been won and lost and then regained. Some of them to-day are temporarily lost to the tide, and in spite of the urgent need for all the acres of food producing land, the problem of financing these works must loom its critical head and wag words of economic wisdom.