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Nick Shepherd 4
Nick Shepherd - Hallsands
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The Moorland Dart
The Moorland Dart
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Bellever
Bellever
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Crockern Tor with Bearsdown tors in distance
Crockern Tor with Bearsdown tors in distance
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Postbridge
Postbridge
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The Judge's Chair
The Judge's Chair
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The Powder Mills
The Powder Mills
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West Dart
West Dart
Man's Folly?
One of my most memorable days was photographing the remains of the lost village of Hallsands on the South Devon coast in north easterly gales on an early winter morning in 2007.
With a high spring tide and mountainous seas, I remember crawling on all fours to the edge of the cliff where I photographed the spectacle which was unfolding before me. In particular I recall the eerie sight of gigantic waves crashing around the one remaining wall of the one remaining house with its one remaining doorway.
The original destruction took place some 90 years earlier in similar conditions and has been described as a testament to man’s folly. The greatest sadness is that in most people’s eyes the tragedy could have been avoided.
Hallsands in the late 19th century was a quiet village of hard working people who principally made their living from fishing. The village supported 128 inhabitants and was protected from the sea by a beach which had a large pebble ridge.
Its downfall lay in plans, unknown to local fishermen at the time, to extend the Royal Naval Dockyard at Plymouth. This would involve dredging the seabed nearby for sand and shingle to be used as aggregate.
Dredging began in the spring of 1897 and over the next 4 years 660,000 tonnes of material were removed. Activities were eventually stopped when opposition from the fishermen grew as they started to see their protective shingle beaches starting to disappear.
Mistakenly, the people who formulated the dredging scheme assumed that any dredged shingle would be replaced by similar material from further up the English Channel. Today we know that this was never going to be the case as the same shingle was deposited thousands of years ago during past ice ages.
On the 26th January 1917, a rare strong easterly wind blew down the channel as the storm began to brew. Well protected from the prevailing south westerly’s, the village became vulnerable as the winds swung around onshore to the north-east.
The tide was exceptionally high that night and the sea quickly pounded up the beach. It surged over the pebble ridge crashing across a wall into the houses beyond. Smashing through windows and bursting open doors, it flooded the ground floors of houses, enveloping them in cold swirling water. By midnight 4 houses had already gone. Panic stricken the inhabitants gathered the few belongings they could and gathered on the cliff top to watch the final blow.
Even the dawn was not to relieve their misery, for the following day brought another hide tide. The winds were as strong as ever and one by one the houses were felled. At the days end only one house was left standing. The devastation was complete. In less than 24 hours 29 houses had been destroyed along with a village’s livelihood. The only small crumb of comfort was that miraculously nobody was killed.
It is very hard to imagine how terrified the villagers must have been on that night and the degree of anguish that followed. I can only hope that the “one remaining wall” is preserved (as far as possible) for future generations so that people can be reminded that man meddles with nature at his peril.
All photographs copyright Nick Shepherd.
First publihsed November 2009 By the Dart