Stonar and the Wantsum Channel: Part I.-Physiograpical

( 62 ) STONAR AND THE WANTSUM CHANNEL. PART I.—PHYSIOGRAPHTOAL. BY E. W. HARDMAN, LL.D., E.S.A., AND W. P. D. STEBBING, E.S.A., E.G.S. STONAR is a smaU parish of irregular longitudinal shape containing 717 acres and lying between Ebbsfleet and Sandwich on the Sandwich—Ramsgate road. It has a written history going back to Saxon times and its existence in the period of the Roman occupation is sufficiently indicated. But the outstanding interest and importance of Stonar lie in its physical and geological record. In its stones and configuration, its closely confined encirclement and environment, are preserved the record of vast physical changes that occurred in the prehistoric period. The rise and fall of Stonar were not fortuitous. Its fortunes were moulded and determined by inexorable laws of cause and effect which had been in silent operation for thousands of years before the Christian era. If the effects, so far as Stonar is concerned, were local and mainly confined to the neighbouring chalk cliffs and the Wantsum Channel, the causes were of far wider extent. For clearness and convenience the physical history of the Wantsum Channel may be summarized in the six propositions set out below. (See map.) 1. The Wantsum strait is a partly eroded channel in a shaUow synchme of the ChaUt which outcrops on both sides of it. In a portion of this depression between Minster and Ebbsfleet are the denuded remnants of the immediately later (Tertiary) formation known as Thanet Sand.1 1 H. J. Osborne White, " Tho Geology of tho country near Ramsgate and Dover." Mem. Geol. Survey, 1928, p. 46. Asynolino may bo denned as strata dipping towards a common lino in a hollow depression. {•>£«. >fcU<*, V ^ VIEW OF THE NORTHEHN END OF STONAR. WITH THE BUILDINGS OF THE SALT WORKS. Engraving dated 1812. STONAR AND THE WANTSUM CHANNEL. 63 2. The dominant currents formerly swept into the Channel through its northern entrance and pUed up vast quantities of redeposited Thanet Sand and the newer Eocenes round its eastern exit. 3. The Thanet chalk cUffs. formerly extended much farther seaward, and the flint shingle eroded from them was for a long time carried out to sea in a southerly direction. But the accumulation of fine materials round the eastern exit of the Channel formed a bank which arrested the dispersal of the flint shingle and caused it to deposit in a narrow Une directly across the eastern mouth of the Channel. 4. Stonar as land surface did not exist in the early period. Its development as land was brought about by a combination of three factors operating successively: (a) The existence of Thanet Sand as a backing ; (b) Accumulation against and on it of flint shingle from the Thanet cUffs ; (c) Deposit of silt against the shingle. The relation of cause and effect existed between each of these stages and its successor. 5. The formation of Stonar was the principal factor in the silting up of the Wantsum Channel. The tidal currents were largely blocked, the sea channel disappeared, and there remained only the outflow of the two Stours over a part of its bed. 6. The next change to be noted did not develop out of local conditions but acted in opposition to them. Hitherto the North Sea had formed a bay opening into the Atlantic on its northern side, and the EngUsh Channel another bay opening into the Atlantic on its western side. These bays were separated by a chahk ridge which formed a land bridge between England and the Continent. Owing mainly to land subsidence this land bridge at a very early date was 64 STONAR AND THE WANTSUM CHANNEL. breached by the sea, and the straits of Dover were opened. A huge volume of the tidal currents rushed along the EngUsh Channel from the Atlantic and poured into the North Sea from the south. The easterly drift began. The dominant tides now reached the east coast of Kent from the south, and shingle washed from the chalk cliffs of the South Foreland traveUed along the coast in a northerly direction. The Goodwin Sands were formed : shingle was laid along the low coasts of Walmer and Deal and formed an outer fringe to the bank of Thanet Sand which lay beyond them. THE CONTINENTAL SHELP. The physical changes have extended over a wide area, but the area has a unity of its own. Lf we look at a physical map of Europe we see that the British Isles are the highest part of a great continental shelf. The surrounding seas are aU shaUow. St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea, the EngUsh Channel, the North Sea (mcluding the Baltic) and a belt along the west coast of Ireland and the north coast of Scotland as far as the Shetland Isles, stand out in sharp contrast to the deeps of the Atlantic Ocean. In the North Sea the depth hardly ever exceeds fifty fathoms, and in places it is reduced to ten fathoms or less. On the other hand the Atlantic at a distance of fifty or sixty mUes only from the Irish coast reaches a depth of over a thousand fathoms. See especiaUy the physical maps of Europe and of the British Isles in Sir Cyril Fox's Personality of Britain, 3rd edition, 1938. This continental shelf has been less stable than the continental land mass or the deep seas. A comparatively sUght rise or faU of the shelf would increase or diminish the land surface. There is evidence that on more than one occasion Britain has been joined to the continent of Europe. The South Downs has its continuation and counterpart in the chalk hiUs of Artois in north-eastern France. It is also clear from raised beaches, old high river banks, submerged STONAR AND THE WANTSUM CHANNEL. 65 forests and other indications that the changes have sometimes been of a local character and have not affected the whole of the shelf. But they have always taken place on some part of it. The continental shelf would seem to have reached its greatest elevation in the Glacial ages and to have been foUowed by a long period of subsidence which only came to an end in the second mUlennium B.o. In the earUer period much of the North Sea was continuous land (see Prehistoric England, by Grahame Clark, p. 1). In the EngUsh Channel there was the land bridge at Dover, and Jersey was joined to the continent. (See The Bailiwick of Jersey by Jacquetta Hawkes and F. E. Zeuner, Ph.D., " The origin of the EngUsh Channel." Discovery, July, 1935.) Numerous smaUer changes not associated with any general rise or faU of the land have taken place. Many of these have been due to the movement of material by sea action from one place to another. The changes in the North Sea have to some extent differed in character from those in the EngUsh Channel, but in both the outline of the coasts has been altered. See the instructive section on changes of land within the Prehistoric Period in Southern Britain in Fox, op. cit., pp. 23-6, and especiaUy Dr. F. J. North's map, Figure 10, on p. 25. THE NORTH SEA. The North Sea at the present day presents features which are consistent with its having been in past times an enclosed bay having an opening into the Atlantic on its northern side. The coast Une'of HoUand and North Germany from the Scheldt to the Elbe, the Zuider Zee and the Frisian Islands, show exactly the low broken Une of mixed land and sea, of sand and sUt, that we should expect to find on a lee shore where the outflow of rivers mingles with the dying tides. The four great estuaries on the east coast of Britain aU open out towards the north-east: Moray Firth, the Firth of Forth, the Wash (estuary of the Witham, WeUand, Nen and Great Ouse) and the Thames and Medway estuary. The numerous submerged banks of fine deposits in the Thames 8 66 STONAR AND THE WANTSUM CHANNEL. estuary are mostly elongated towards the north-east and Ue along the coast Une of Essex and Suffolk. Dunwich on the Suffolk coast has been washed away by the sea and its remains now perhaps exist in the mud banks lying along the coast. It was Domnoc in the time of Bede (c. A.D. 730) and at that time the seat of a bishopric. The North Sea is deepest at its northern opening and shaUows considerably in its southern part especiaUy south of the Dogger Bank. These facts point to a time when the dominant tides of the North Sea came from the north. But the clearest and most conclusive proof is found in the southward travel of the Stonar shingle. THE ENGLISH CHANNEL. The evidence of tidal action in the Channel is stronger and more uniform. The movement is aU in one direction. The eastward drift has carried everything before it. Old Winchelsea was swept away in 1287. Old BroomhUl (Prumhel in c. 1165), a vttlage on the borders of Kent and Sussex and a Liberty of Romney, has also disappeared. On the other hand there have been gains of land on and near the Kent coast. The ancient Cmque Port harbours of Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich have been choked up with shingle and sUt. As early as A.D. 741 the mouth of the river Limene had been driven to the east as far as Romney (see King Eadbriht's charter of Romney of that date, B.C.S. 161, and King Offa's charter of Lydd in 774, B.C.S. 214), and it continued to advance in the same direction untU it was halted by the cliffs of Hythe. Then in the great inundation of 1287 which destroyed Old Winchelsea the river broke back and has since (as the Rother) entered the sea at Rye. The great mass of shingle which forms the promontory of Dungeness has been formed and is still growing. The wide open river estuaries which form a conspicuous element in the North Sea are not found in the Channel. They have been smoothed out by the travel of shingle backed by the deposit of hill- and river-wash. The EngUsh Channel was at an early period an enclosed bay opening into the Atlantic on its western side and these • LAND BELOW JO FEET RECoLyggl THA N ET CHIStETj EUU5TEH rCOTTIN&TQ WeSTMARS STQwAftf**5 f ICKHAM -t-WIN&HAM THE WANTSUM CHANNEL AS IT REMAINS TO-DAY. 68 STONAR AND THE WANTSUM CHANNEL. changes have aU occurred since the opening of the Straits of Dover enabled the tidal currents to sweep through into the North Sea. THE WANTSUM CHANNEL. Thanet is, or rather was, an island at the southern corner of the Thames estuary, and was known from a very early period. It is mentioned by Solinus (c. A.D. 280), Bede (c. 730), Asser (893), and frequently in the Saxon charters from 675. Asser says it was caUed Tenet in the Saxon tongue but Ruim by the British. From Monkton and Minster to the cliffs on the north and east sides it consists for the most part of an elevated chahk plateau, but along the Wantsum Channel on the west and south sides Ues a stretch of low marsh land. The Thanet Sand of Minster extends eastwards as far as CUffsend. It forms outUers in Weatherlease HU1 and Richborough and a Uttle farther to the east the denuded remnants are exposed in a long spur to a point on the Sandwich—Ramsgate road south of Halfway House and opposite Pepperness. The British name of Thanet, Ruim, seems to mean marsh and to imply that the side adjoining the mainland of Kent was best known to the early inhabitants. Thanet was separated from Kent by the Wantsum sea channel. The latter is first mentioned by Bede who says : " On the east of Kent is the large isle of Thanet containing according to the EngUsh way of reckoning six hundred families, divided from the other land by the river Wantsum which is about three furlongs over and fordable only in two places for both ends of it run into the sea." Into the Wantsum were discharged the waters of the river Stour which drained a large area of East Kent and opened out into a tidal estuary at Fordwich before reaching the Wantsum at Stourmouth. The Little Stour also reached the Wantsum at Stourmouth, and various smaUer streams drained into the sea channel at other places. The streams were flat and sluggish with much sUt brought down as hiUwash but the channel was scoured by the tides. 5 "f ''a/Ay ,t h-'' ,^,^4/ •4?SJFJ **•<& * /«*,- ^M I Z. £ * BB i i r i i . / j i i i i i i I /ie So-o -., y 1/Ac fiat/re*) a/ /At -Jt/Ae cf t/te .jfrram a'erur/t: ltd A*rracA/Ai tn Aeet'. aA- Acn< water ntan &e&- T^AAe c/oftecA Atnca arc cntrniAeaA? crnuey a. atrural uAa- df' t/te e&AemA rf ti^dt$eren&. "a/Aeyj aruA AtveAf. AtU are net ArtrcecA ot-U Arcm, aclt/^A meizda re nunt~- f**~**r Jfritntr*"- -N. yoiiAuzAA &\^i ,/o,.9M,sr