The Sea Coast

Coastal scenery also depends greatly on that of the country to which it forms the margin. The contrast between the flat-topped cliffs of the Hartland district of North Devon and the hog’s-back cliffs of Exmoor; or the striking difference between the even skyline of the cliffs of the Tenby and Gower Peninsulas or of the Lizard district with the coast on either side of Salcombe Harbour in South Devon or with that of the north coast of Sutherland, all demand attention if we are going to explain fully the scenery of our coastline.

I am fully aware of many of the shortcomings of this book, and also of the generalizations made in it. A complete explanation of the intricate landscape of the Western Isles and mainland of Scotland is not at present possible. The origin of the North Sea and its connection with the cliffs of our east coasts, the reason for the Shetland archipelago, the former river systems of the North Channel and Irish Sea, the significance of the Cornubian peninsula, and the means of separation of Britain from the Continent and of Ireland from Britain are all great and largely unsolved problems. Yet to appreciate our coastline fully we must try to understand these topics just as much as the more obvious ones of erosion and accretion. If I have done nothing else than provoke discussion or disagreement I am well satisfied because it has always seemed to me that some of these matters have been all too readily overlooked—and it is a long time since Sir Haiford Mackinder introduced some of them in his Britain and the British Seas.

Once again I acknowledge with great pleasure my indebtedness to Dr. H. Dighton Thomas, who read through this book in typescript and made many helpful suggestions. To the Editors of the New Naturalist volumes I am also grateful for much constructive help and criticism. The diagrams have nearly all been drawn for me by Mr. L. R. Thurston, who spent much time and care on them. The sources of those diagrams based on the work of others are all duly acknowledged elsewhere. Permission to use maps and diagrams which have appeared in official publications has been obtained from the H.M. Stationery Office. The Royal Geographical Society and the Cambridge University Press have also kindly allowed me to make use of certain maps and figures. The photographs are from various sources, and I am indeed glad to record my thanks to those who have allowed me to make use of them. The origin of each photograph is given below it.

In order that the large figures 44, 47 and 50 may be printed from single blocks, they have had to be placed somewhat remotely from the text-passages to which they refer.

The Index was compiled by Mr. Geoffrey Willett, to whom I am most grateful.

J. A. STEERS,

Cambridge, May, 1952

Preface to the Third Edition

An appendix has been added in this edition. It begins with a brief account of the great flood of 1953, and then summarizes some of the important trends in coastal work, mainly since the War.

J. A. STEERS

Cambridge, July, 1960

Preface to the Fourth Edition

In this edition a note has been added to Chapter 9 in order to call attention to recent work on raised beaches.

J. A. STEERS,

Cambridge, May, 1968

It should be noted that throughout this book Plate numbers in arabic figures refer to the Colour Plates, while roman numerals are used for Black-and-White Plates

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_3611339d-4b12-5122-90b1-ed2797b00a35)

THE RELATION OF THE COAST TO THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF GREAT BRITAIN

BEFORE discussing coastal matters sensu stricto, it will repay us to glance at the general relation between the structure of the rocks forming the coastline of Great Britain and that of the country as a whole (see Fig. 1).

Although the interpretation of much of the geology of Scotland is still hypothetical, the main structural regions of the country are clearly differentiated, and are associated with coastlines possessing marked characteristics. The dominant grain of Scotland is north-east and south-west over most of the country, but more nearly north-north-east and south-south-west in the North-west Highlands. To this geological fact must be added the physical one—namely, that Scotland is higher in the west than in the east. The slope of the country to the east and south-east is related to the preservation of the Old Red Sandstone in Caithness and around the Moray Firth. Formerly this formation, as well as still newer ones, spread over some of the mountainous interior.

The effect of the grain on the coastline is apparent in many places, but from Cape Wrath to the Caithness border, along the Moray Firth particularly in Banffshire, in Argyll, Jura, Islay, and Kintyre, it is conspicuous. This is emphasised in Figs. 20 and 21, which illustrate how the headlands and re-entrants of Sutherland and Banff follow the trend of the rocks which form them. In Argyll and the adjacent islands the correspondence is often more obvious, but is best appreciated by a study of a geological map of the whole country.

Whilst the folds and thrusts, which enter so largely into the structure of the North-west Highlands, are generally parallel to the coastline, it is nevertheless the case that the north-west and south-east trends of sea lochs, valleys, and igneous dykes, produce the most effective coastal scenery in western Sutherland and Wester Ross.

The gradual change from the north-west and south-east trend of the sea lochs between Cape Wrath and Skye, through the east and west direction of those between the Kyle of Lochalsh and Loch Sunart, and then to the south-westerly trend of the Great Glen and the Argyll lochs, hardly reflects the major structural traits of the country, which are more clearly shown in the parallelism of the Outer Hebrides and the North-west Highlands, and that of the Coll-Tiree ridge with the prevailing grain of the Grampians. The region from the Shiant islands to the south of Mull was at one time buried under lavas and other products of the great volcanoes of Skye, Rum, Ardnamurchan, and Mull. This and the later collapse of parts of the area obscure the relations between the coastline and the general structure of the country.

In the Central Valley, between the great faults bordering the Highlands and the Southern Uplands, a tract of country, the rocks of which have been folded in a south-west and north-east pattern, has been dropped down. This general direction of strike of the strata as shown on a map is clearest in the Old Red Sandstone outcrop extending from Loch Lomond to Stonehaven, but it is also apparent in the trends of the Ochil and Sidlaw Hills, and in the folds involving the Carboniferous strata. The trend, however, has no very pronounced effects on the coast except perhaps between Stonehaven and Arbroath. In the Firths of Tay and Forth, and also inland, numerous outcrops of igneous rock and the necks of old volcanoes are more likely to focus the attention, than is the influence on scenery of the strike of the beds in which they are intruded.

The marked trend of the Southern Uplands locally affects the coast, especially near St. Abb’s Head and in Wigtownshire. It may also be observed in detail on parts of the Solway coast,

(#ulink_8a850baf-cac4-53c9-9bf2-d649d0583d1e) and in the line of the Solway Firth. The bays and larger inlets of Wigtown, Kirkcudbright, and Dumfries are discordant, and may recall a time when rivers flowed on a cover of newer rocks and so passed athwart the grain of the older rocks.

The cartographical relation between the major structural trends of the country and the coast is close enough, but the field relationships are often obscured; along many miles of the Moray Firth and of Aberdeenshire sand flats and wide dune systems hide it completely. Elsewhere, the frequent raised beaches and the grassing over of the old cliffs may divert attention from it. Yet in the trend of small inlets, the lines of cliff faces, the direction of certain valleys, and in all sorts of other ways, the grain has a pervasive effect. In places, not only cliff detail but also that of the adjoining land, may be completely hidden by boulder clay. This, however, is a more marked characteristic of coasts south of the Border.

In England and Wales the relation of coast to the structure of the interior of the country is perhaps less impressive. Geological maps emphasise the strike of the Jurassic and Cretaceous beds, and the scarps of the Cotswolds and Chiltern Hills, but in eastern England the influence of either the trend or of the rocks composing these formations is small indeed. In the coastal parts of Holderness and Lincolnshire the Cretaceous beds are completely hidden by boulder clay, and in north Norfolk, apart from an outcrop at Hunstanton, the Chalk lies behind a wide fringe of salt marsh, and only makes a final appearance on the foreshore at and near Sheringham.

From the Border to Flamborough Head, rock type locally has a great effect on the coastal scenery (see here (#litres_trial_promo)), although the connection between the coastal scenery and the structure of both coast and interior is not striking. On the coast itself this is partly because the extensive sandy beaches and long lines of dunes on the Northumberland coast hide it. The Carboniferous rocks of Northumberland and Durham are roughly concentric around The Cheviot, and for many miles south of Berwick they (including the Calciferous sandstone series) outcrop on the coast in such a way as to give rapidly alternating beds of usually thin sandstones, shales, and limestones locally intruded by the Whin Sill, which produces the most interesting features, including the Farne Islands. The Millstone Grit and Coal Measures follow to the south, and form the coastline of the southern part of Northumberland. The Magnesian limestone, of Permian age, makes nearly the whole of the Durham coast.

In the Cleveland district of Yorkshire, the Jurassic rocks are gently folded along an east and west axis, but near the coast, local anticlines and synclines modify the major trend. The low ground near the Tees mouth is clearly related to the soft Permian and Triassic rocks thereabouts.

FIG. 1—A simplified Geological map of the British Isles. (Based on Geological Survey)

The north-east and south-west trend so characteristic of Scotland reappears in the Lake District and in Wales. In the Lakes the older rocks—the Skiddaw Slates, Borrowdale Volcanics, and Upper (Silurian) Slates—are approximately parallel with the folds in the Southern Uplands, but they do not reach the coast. The history of the Lake District is long and complicated; suffice it to say that before the final doming which immediately preceded its present form, Carboniferous and newer rocks had been deposited over the older Palaeozoics. As a result of the doming in Tertiary time, the newer rocks have been worn away from the centre of the district, but remain as a girdle on the coast and in the Eden valley.

North and central Wales show the Caledonian trend to advantage. The orientation of the Lleyn peninsula conforms to it, as also do the major outcrops in Anglesey. Between, approximately, Aberystwyth and Pembrokeshire, the coast of Cardigan Bay runs in the same direction, but the exact significance of this is uncertain, although the coast may conform to a structural line parallel with the central Wales syncline and the Teifi and Towy anticlines. North and central Wales are built around the dome of Cambrian rocks, the outcrop of which coincides fairly closely with Merionethshire.

There is no need to enquire in detail into the structure of central England, but the significance of a line running from Carmarthen Bay to Church Stretton, and then northwards to the great faults that border the western side of the Pennines, and perhaps as far as the Solway, needs brief mention. The line separates to the west a tract in which prolonged sedimentation went on throughout Lower Palaeozoic times. There were many movements of the sea floor, and at times, especially in the Ordovician, there was a great deal of vulcanicity, which has given us the characteristic scenery of Cader Idris, much of the Lleyn peninsula, and the Borrowdales in the Lake District. But from the early part of the Cambrian until the close of the Silurian this western sea was an area in which thousands of feet of sediment slowly accumulated. To the east of this long line there was a continental area on the margins of which the sea occasionally spread and laid down sediments. The contrast between the slowly subsiding western region and the continental areas to the east is of great significance in the formation of the Caledonian mountains.

In the region now called the Southern Uplands of Scotland, there was also a sea in early Palaeozoic times, and in the waters more distant from the coast, thin and fine shales slowly accumulated. In the more coastal parts, sedimentation was far more rapid. A comparison of the rocks in the Hawick and Girvan districts soon reveals the difference of conditions.

In the North-west Highlands region there was also an early Palaeozoic sea. The Cambrian rocks of that area were deposited in it, but its later history is obscure.

In all three regions there was great tectonic activity at the close of Silurian times. For whatever may have been the reason, the sediments which had accumulated in the seas were violently squeezed and folded, and later raised into mountain ranges. The details vary from place to place, but the general direction of movement was from the south-east, and it is this which has produced the marked north-east and south-west grain so noticeable in these regions of Caledonian folding.

In South Wales and in southern England the trend of the rocks is more nearly east and west. This is exemplified with great clarity in the coalfield of South Wales, and the adjacent folding in the Tenby and Gower peninsulas. It occurs in the Mendips, and in Cornwall and Devon. Farther east it gives rise to the characteristic scenery of the Isles of Purbeck and Wight, and of the Weald. The main direction of the syncline of the London Basin is in accord, and so also is that of the lower Bristol Channel.

The east-west trend in the south of Britain is the result of folding movements of two distinct and long separated periods of time. The folding of the coalfield and adjacent parts of South Wales took place at the end of Carboniferous times, and is named the Armorican folding. The much newer folding of the Tertiary period, the Alpine folding, followed the same east and west direction, but also involved much newer rocks. In Kent the surface folding, which is the key to so much of the scenery, is generally parallel to the underlying folds which have been studied in the deeply buried Kent coalfield. This ancient folding is probably continuous below the surface with that of South Wales on the one side, and the Boulonnais, Belgian coalfield, and the Ruhr on the other.

The Armorican and Alpine folds are largely responsible for the major pattern of our southern coasts. The Chalk headlands of the North and South Forelands, and Beachy Head, the sweeping curves in the softer Wealden and Tertiary beds of the Hampshire basin, the lozenge-shape of the Isle of Wight, the intricate relation of structure and coastal scenery in Purbeck, the disposition of the rocks in Cornwall on either side of the Watergate anticline, the arrangement of the beds in the Ilfracombe district, the beautiful symmetry of the coasts of Gower and Tenby, and the final meeting in western Pembrokeshire of the Armorican and Caledonian folds—the latter almost east and west at this point—all illustrate this.

North of the Thames the main direction of strike is north-east and south-west, but in Norfolk and Lincolnshire it becomes nearly north and south. The escarpments of the Cotswolds and Chilterns and of the adjacent hills indicate that the Mesozoic rocks of which they are formed, at one time extended much farther to the north-west. The occurrence of Jurassic rocks in the Western Isles of Scotland, and of Chalk beneath the basalts of County Antrim, imply that a great blanket of Mesozoic rocks formerly spread over most of Britain. It was on these that our present river systems originated. Whether the present south-west and north-east trend of scarplands is the direct outcome of erosive processes, or whether it is in part the result of tectonic movement need not concern us here.

It is only on the east coast, more especially between Flamborough Head and the Thames, that there is little, if any, relation between coastal form and tectonic structure. Holderness and eastern Lincolnshire are almost entirely formed of drift deposits. Glacial beds together with the soft crags of Tertiary age make up most of the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Essex coast, consisting of alluvium and recent deposits resting on London Clay, is similar, except that it may be argued that the folding of the London Basin has been the main factor in producing the underlying structure of the Eocene clays.

On the west the coastlands of Lancashire and Cheshire show little or no direct relation to structure. Apart from the cover of blown sand and drift deposits, the solid ground consists mainly of Permian and Triassic beds banked against the older formations, which at Rossendale and Bowland push south-westwards as anticlinal ridges.

In later chapters we shall see how greatly ice deposition, and fluctuation of sea level, have affected the coastline, and in Chapters 8 (#litres_trial_promo) and 9 (#litres_trial_promo) there are references to the warping and other movements which have helped to shape it. In this chapter, an attempt, all too brief, has been made to show how tectonic structure has left its mark—why, in some parts like Cardigan Bay, or the coast between Weymouth and Beachy Head, the trend of the rocks is approximately parallel to the coast, whilst in others, e.g. Banffshire and Western Pembrokeshire, the trend is at right angles. Factors of this kind have much influence on coastal scenery; in the one case the same bed or beds may form the cliffs for long distances, in the other the folding brings many different beds close together and the differential erosion of the sea produces a variety of effects.

The older and harder rocks are in the north and west of Great Britain, and this, taken into consideration with the folding and other movements to which they have been subjected, is the cause of the profound contrast between the north and west and the coast between Tees and Exe, which is formed of soft and often very recent beds. The soft nature of the rocks abutting on the south-eastern coasts is an important, but by no means the only, reason for the great development of shingle spits and other shore forms found there.

For further reading on the subject matter of this chapter:

L. D. STAMP, Britain’s Structure and Scenery, 1946.

A. E. TRUEMAN, The Scenery of England and Wales, 1938. (Also in Pelican Books.)

L. J. WILLS, The Physiographical Evolution of Britain, 1929.

(#ulink_d0aca268-48fb-5e43-933c-af7327540b32)Mems. Geol. Surv., Scotland, Sheet 5, Kirkcudbrightshire; J. Horne et al 1896. “So rapid are the folds that upwards of sixty anticlines and synclines have been mapped between Corsegard Point and Knockbrex, a distance of one and a quarter miles.”