sea, which looks very far away.
We cannot follow all the victories of the sea. We might examine the inroads made by the waves at Selsea. There stood the first cathedral of the district before Chichester was founded. The building is now beneath the sea, and since Saxon times half of the Selsea Bill has vanished. The village of Selsea rested securely in the centre of the peninsula, but only half a mile now separates it from the sea. Some land has been gained near this projecting headland by an industrious farmer. His farm surrounded a large cove with a narrow mouth through which the sea poured. If he could only dam up that entrance, he thought he could rescue the bed of the cove and add to his acres. He bought an old ship and sank it by the entrance and proceeded to drain. But a tiresome storm arose and drove the ship right across the cove, and the sea poured in again. By no means discouraged, he dammed up the entrance more effectually, got rid of the water, increased his farm by many acres, and the old ship makes an admirable cow-shed.
The Isle of Wight in remote geological periods was part of the mainland. The Scilly Isles were once joined with Cornwall, and were not severed until the fourteenth century, when by a mighty storm and flood, 140 churches and villages were destroyed and overwhelmed, and 190 square miles of land carried away. Much land has been lost in the Wirral district of Cheshire. Great forests have been overwhelmed, as the skulls and bones of deer and horse and fresh-water shell-fish have been frequently discovered at low tide. Fifty years ago a distance of half a mile separated Leasowes Castle from the sea; now its walls are washed by the waves. The Pennystone, off the Lancashire coast by Blackpool, tells of a submerged village and manor, about which cluster romantic legends.
Such is the sad record of the sea's destruction, for which the industrious reclamation of land, the compensations wrought by the accumulation of shingle and sand dunes and the silting of estuaries can scarcely compensate us. How does the sea work this? There are certain rock-boring animals, such as the Pholas, which help to decay the rocks. Each mollusc cuts a series of augur-holes from two to four inches deep, and so assists in destroying the bulwarks of England. Atmospheric action, the disintegration of soft rocks by frost and by the attack of the sea below, all tend in the same direction. But the foolish action of man in removing shingle, the natural protection of our coasts, is also very mischievous. There is an instance of this in the Hall Sands and Bee Sands, Devon. A company a few years ago obtained authority to dredge both from the foreshore and sea-bed. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests and the Board of Trade granted this permission, the latter receiving a royalty of £50 and the former £150. This occurred in 1896. Soon afterwards a heavy gale arose and caused an immense amount of damage, the result entirely of this dredging. The company had to pay heavily, and the royalties were returned to them. This is only one instance out of many which might be quoted. We are an illogical nation, and our regulations and authorities are weirdly confused. It appears that the foreshore is under the control of the Board of Trade, and then a narrow strip of land is ruled over by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Of course these bodies do not agree; different policies are pursued by each, and the coast suffers. Large sums are sometimes spent in coast-defence works. At Spurn no less than £37,433 has been spent out of Parliamentary grants, besides £14,227 out of the Mercantile Marine Fund. Corporations or county authorities, finding their coasts being worn away, resolve to protect it. They obtain a grant in aid from Parliament, spend vast sums, and often find their work entirely thrown away, or proving itself most disastrous to their neighbours. If you protect one part of the coast you destroy another. Such is the rule of the sea. If you try to beat it back at one point it will revenge itself on another. If only you can cause shingle to accumulate before your threatened town or homestead, you know you can make the place safe and secure from the waves. But if you stop this flow of shingle you may protect your own homes, but you deprive your neighbours of this safeguard against the ravages of the sea. It was so at Deal. The good folks of Deal placed groynes in order to stop the flow of shingle and protect the town. They did their duty well; they stopped the shingle and made a good bulwark against the sea. With what result? In a few years' time they caused the destruction of Sandown, which had been deprived of its natural protection. Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., who has walked along the whole coast from Norfolk to Cornwall, besides visiting other parts of our English shore, and whose contributions to the Report of the Royal Commission on Coast Erosion are so valuable, remembers when a boy the Castle of Sandown, which dated from the time of Henry VIII. It was then in a sound condition and was inhabited. Now it is destroyed, and the batteries farther north have gone too. The same thing is going on at Dover. The Admiralty Pier causes the accumulation of shingle on its west side, and prevents it from following its natural course in a north-easterly direction. Hence the base of the cliffs on the other side of the pier and harbour is left bare and unprotected; this aids erosion, and not unfrequently do we hear of the fall of the chalk cliffs.
Isolated schemes for the prevention of coast erosion are of little avail. They can do no good, and only increase the waste and destruction of land in neighbouring shores. Stringent laws should be passed to prevent the taking away of shingle from protecting beaches, and to prohibit the ploughing of land near the edge of cliffs, which greatly assists atmospheric destructive action from above. The State has recently threatened the abandonment of the coastguard service. This would be a disastrous policy. Though the primary object of coastguards, the prevention of smuggling, has almost passed away, the old sailors who act as guardians of our coast-line render valuable services to the country. They are most useful in looking after the foreshore. They save many lives from wrecked vessels, and keep watch and ward to guard our shores, and give timely notice of the advance of a hostile fleet, or of that ever-present foe which, though it affords some protection for our island home from armed invasion, does not fail to exact a heavy tithe from the land it guards, and has destroyed so many once flourishing towns and villages by its ceaseless attack.
CHAPTER III
OLD WALLED TOWNS
The destruction of ancient buildings always causes grief and distress to those who love antiquity. It is much to be deplored, but in some cases is perhaps inevitable. Old-fashioned half-timbered shops with small diamond-paned windows are not the most convenient for the display of the elegant fashionable costumes effectively draped on modelled forms. Motor-cars cannot be displayed in antiquated old shops. Hence in modern up-to-date towns these old buildings are doomed, and have to give place to grand emporiums with large plate-glass windows and the refinements of luxurious display. We hope to visit presently some of the old towns and cities which happily retain their ancient beauties, where quaint houses with oversailing upper stories still exist, and with the artist's aid to describe many of their attractions.
Although much of the destruction is, as I have said, inevitable, a vast amount is simply the result of ignorance and wilful perversity. Ignorant persons get elected on town councils—worthy men doubtless, and able men of business, who can attend to and regulate the financial affairs of the town, look after its supply of gas and water, its drainage and tramways; but they are absolutely ignorant of its history, its associations, of architectural beauty, of anything that is not modern and utilitarian. Unhappily, into the care of such men as these is often confided the custody of historic buildings and priceless treasures, of ruined abbey and ancient walls, of objects consecrated by the lapse of centuries and by the associations of hundreds of years of corporate life; and it is not surprising that in many cases they betray their trust. They are not interested in such things. "Let bygones be bygones," they say. "We care not for old rubbish." Moreover, they frequently resent interference and instruction. Hence they destroy wholesale what should be preserved, and England is the poorer.
Not
