East Coast of England

“ On some parts of the coast-line of the east of England, where the rock is easily worn away, the sea advances on the land at a rate of two or three feet every year. Towns and villages which existed a few centuries ago, have one by one disappeared, and their sites are now a long way out under the restless waters of the North Sea. ”

“ The Yare: Norwich—Yarmouth.
After the Medway and the Thames have delivered their great contributions to the sea, the peculiar Essex coast country—flat, marshy, and often very uninteresting—is sufficiently served by a number of small streams of little note in literature, and generally as commonplace in appearance as in the duties they perform. There are exceptions, which will be duly indicated, but with regard to the majority of the streams of East Anglia, poet has not sung nor painter wrought his magic art. If not remote, unfriended, or melancholy, they are, it cannot be denied, slow. ”

“ As the Powers finally arranged it, the map of the West Coast is like a mosaic, like the edge of a badly constructed patchwork quilt. In trading along the West Coast a man can find use for five European languages, and he can use a new one at each port of call. ”

“ The hungry ocean has gnawed and ravaged the New England coast, until along almost its entire length it is worn into ragged edges, forming islands, capes, promontories, bold headlands, peninsulas, bays, inlets and coves. In this coast are united the grand, the picturesque and the beautiful. Soft masses of foliage are in close juxtaposition with rugged rocks and dashing surf. ”

“ There is never a place more rock-bound, more broken into fantastic shapes, and worn daily and increasingly by the waves, than this east coast. Neither Biarritz nor Brittany nor Nova Scotia is more broken or more thunderous in resentment. ”

“ By the west coast is meant the whole of that wondrous succession of far-penetrating fiords and bays, cliff-guarded shores, and sea-washed mountains from Bantry Bay to Malin Head, a distance of over four hundred miles. There may be wilder scenery on the coasts of Norway, Labrador, or Scotland, but for wildness, sublimity, and beauty combined, there is hardly in Europe, or in the world, another four hundred miles of coast equal to it. ”

“ Following the coast northward, past Great Yarmouth, and up to a trifle beyond Cromer, we have that extremely interesting district known as the East Anglian Broads, which have now become one of the most popular summer resorts for boating and fishing men, and a well-frequented haunt of the wild-fowler who is not afraid to brave the bitter winds of winter, cruising over the great watery wastes in search of the game which can be found in such quantities in this part of the country. ”

“ To the east, the coast retires into a semicircular rocky recess, terminating seawards in a lofty, dark-browed precipice, and bristling, throughout all its extent, with a countless multitude of crags, that, at every heave of the wave, break the surface into a thousand eddies. ”

“ All along the coast of Kent the sea has, for many centuries, been constantly retreating. Partly by the silting-up of river-mouths, partly by the great drift of shingle from west to east which is so striking a feature of our whole southern shore, fresh land has everywhere been forming. ”

“ The Ipswich of to-day, however, with its water and steam mills, its export business in boots and shoes, its great ironworks, is, in East Anglia, the conspicuous type of go-aheadness, and when the Orwell is at high tide the outlook from the heights is of extreme beauty. The estuary then is a lovely stretch of scenery; gently rising hills laid out with grounds and country seats, diversified by woods and high cultivation, appear on either side, and the estuary from grassy shore to grassy shore is covered with water, dotted with white-sailed yachts and craft of more serious order. ”

“ Away to{2} the east and south are the narrow seas, crossed by conquering Romans and Normans, crossed for centuries by a constant stream of travellers from all ends of the earth, citizens of every clime, to some of whom the sight of the English coast was the first glimpse of home, to others the first view of a strange land ”

“ Notwithstanding an identity of genera has been remarked upon their opposite shores, there are, nevertheless, certain others, frequent upon the East Coast, that appear wholly wanting on the north-western shores: of these, the existence of some, even in the tropical parts of New South Wales, seems governed by the primary formation of the coast, its mountainous structure, and consequent permanency of moisture in a greater or less degree ”

“ The finest men in East Anglia were the sailors at the various sea-ports along the coast, well-shaped, fair-haired, with grand limbs and blue eyes, evidently of Saxon or Norse descent, and their daughters were as handsome as any girls I ever saw. ”

“ Being under sail, we steered to the West-South-West, until the land opened round Cape Don in an east-northerly direction for eight miles, and then the coast trended to the south-eastward under Mounts Bedwell and Roe, where the land was lost to view. To the westward the land was observed trending in a north and south direction, and bore the appearance of being an island. ”

“ We will find the outline of Victoria Land on its east coast has a remarkable resemblance to the east coast of Australia. Lying off the coast of Australia we have New Zealand and other islands which have their counterpart in the smaller islands off Victoria Land, notably Balleny Isles, Possession, Coulman, and Ross Islands. The east coast of Australia is flanked by a great mountain range parallel to the coast, which slopes away to the westward, and Victoria Land has exactly the same feature. ”

“ The coast-line shows itself directly subject to almost boundless diversity. Toward the west the independence of each peninsula increases, the more evidently and prominently [195] according to its distance from Asia. Not articulated on two sides alone, like Asia, the east and south, but on all three of its sides exposed to the ocean, the broken coast-line is universal in Europe,—even toward the colder north, where its peninsulas and adjacent islands almost inclose two seas, the North and the Baltic. ”

“ From the harbor of Portland we will make a steamer-excursion almost across the English Channel, going about one hundred and fifteen miles to the Channel Islands, off the north-western coast of France and within a few miles of the shores of Normandy and Brittany. They are Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, standing in a picturesque situation, with a mild climate and fertile soil, and devoted mainly to dairying and to fishing. ”

“ The North Coast appears to have the same winds, with a little exception, as the tropical part of the East Coast. From March or April to November, the south-east trade prevails; often veering, however, to east, and even north-east, and producing fine weather, with sea and land breezes near the shore. ”

“ A favourite method of determining the exact spots visited by the Northmen has been to compare their statements regarding the shape and trend of the coasts, their bays, headlands, etc., with various well-known points on the New England coast. It is a tempting method, but unfortunately treacherous, because the same general description will often apply well enough to several different places. It is like summer boarders in the country struggling to tell one another where they have been to drive,—past a school-house, down a steep hill, through some woods, and by a saw-mill, etc. ”

“ Most of those houses intended for the accommodation of visitors have an aspect due west, so as to command an uninterrupted marine view, which at this point presents a field of interest of which the mind and the eye are never weary. The land, gradually rising as it recedes from the beach, acquires a degree of elevation which excludes the eastern landscape; but for this defect the other points of the compass make ample amends, and present landscapes so varied and extensive as can be rarely met with on the coast of Great Britain. ”

“ DEPTFORD AND PETER THE GREAT The seaboard of Kent, and indeed the south coast of England in general, is no little-known margin of our shores. It is not in the least unspotted from the world, or solitary. It lies too near London for that, and began to be exploited more than a hundred and fifty years ago, when seaside holidays were first invented. ”

“ But all this Coast to Pennobscot, and as farre I could see Eastward of it is nothing but such high craggy Cliffy Rocks and stony Iles, that I wondered such great trees could growe upon so hard foundations. It is a Countrie rather to affright, then delight one. And how to describe a more plaine spectacle of desolation or more barren I knowe not. Yet the Sea there is the strangest fish-pond I ever saw; and those barren Iles so furnished with good woods, springs, fruits, fish, and fowle, that it makes mee thinke though the Coast be rockie, and thus affrightable ”

“ The East coast has never been, so far as we are aware, distinguished for beauty or picturesque qualities, but the bold line of those cliffs, bound at their feet by black ribs of half-visible reefs, iron corrugations of nature running far out, low and dangerous, into the sea—but bordered above high-water mark by the softest verdure of fine grass, mossy and velvety, mantling every height and hollow—has a homely yet wild and free beauty of its own, which, with all the endless varieties of colour upon the broad sea and broader heavens, makes up a scene worthy alike of painter and of poet. ”

“ While in stays the water was observed to wash on a rock not a hundred yards to leeward of us, on which we must infallibly have struck, had we bore up instead of tacking.
[Sidenote: South-east coast dangerous.]
From the north-east to the south-east point, the coast runs south 40o west; the shore to the north-east of this deep bight is bold, and seems clear; that on the south-west side of it presents a formidable barrier of islands and coral reefs, which break to a great distance: in fine weather this part of the coast ought to be approached very cautiously. ”

“ The center of the land hemisphere is in the northwest of Europe, at a point near southeast of England, the northeast of France, and the coast of Holland. The dwellers around the North Sea are the antipodes of the New Zealanders. Great Britain is the country which, as a whole, is the middle point of the continental world. ”

“ They are numerous on the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts, especially off Yarmouth and the Washway. On the Welsh coast, particularly around Beaumaris, Holyhead, &c., the number is very great. In the firth leading to Liverpool, we count no less than twenty-one, of which twelve are total. On the north coast of England the numbers are appalling. Off Hartlepool are fifteen, eight being total. Off Sunderland are twelve, all total but three. Off Newcastle are fifteen, eight total. Ah, that fearful, iron-bound coast of Northumberland! ”

“ The sea coast then intersects a primary ridge, the Lammermuir Hills, which traverses Scotland from east to west, uniting, near the centre of the country, with the metalliferous range of Leadhills, and afterwards with the mountains of Galloway. The section which the sea coast makes of the eastern extremity of this ridge, is highly instructive, from the great disturbance of the primary strata, and the variety of their inflections. ”

“ Right and left of the city, when viewed from the sea, extends low country, whilst behind it, and to the east, rises in the distance a lofty range of mountains. From the open sea, the town and flat country is divided by a natural breakwater that maintains the general trend of the coast. ”

“ The disposition of land and water on this coast suggests the idea that the Western Highlands, from the line in the interior, whence the rivers descend to the Atlantic, with the islands beyond to the outer Hebrides, are all parts of one great mountainous plane, inclined slantways into the sea. ”

“ Taking Australia from east to west, we find a high range skirting the coast on the east, and supporting a dense sub-tropical vegetation, and giving rise to an extensive but uncertain river system. Next comes a more sterile interior, composed of desert, of shallow salt lakes, and of higher steppes in unknown proportions. Approaching the west coast we meet ranges again, and rivers and fertile country. ”

“ Digressing down to the coast of Essex, on the North Sea, we find at the confluence of the Stour and Orwell the best harbor on that side of England, bordered by the narrow and old-fashioned streets of the ancient seaport of Harwich. Here vast fleets seek shelter in easterly gales behind the breakwater that is run out from the Beacon Hill. ”

“ GLENGARRIFF AND BANTRY BAY TWO of the most famous men in English literature have passed unstinted praise on the beauty and charm of the southern Irish coast.
If one looks at a map of the southwest of Ireland, it will be seen that its whole coast-line is broken into serrations, making harbours, islands, bays, and coves. If he should go to the coast itself, he will have revealed to him a wondrous kaleidoscope,—alternate scenes of sweet, pathetic gentleness, and stern and rugged grandeur, all full of engrossing charm. ”

“ Then, as you climb up to the down, on the opposite side, stretches a view, hard to be matched in England either for extent or beauty. On one side rolls the English Channel, indenting the shore with its deep bay as far as the land-locked harbour of Christchurch, shut in by Hengistbury Head and the white Swanage rocks; and, on the other, it sweeps away by the long beach of Hurst and its round gray castle. Opposite, glitter the coloured sands and chalk cliffs of Alum Bay, and the white Needle Rocks running wedge-shaped into the sea. ”