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| A village in slow peril on the sea | A village in slow peril on the sea |
| (6 months later) | |
| Hallsands, South Devon New grass on old roofs, confusing ruined masonry with cliffs – this is what natural reclamation looks like | |
| Simon Ingram | |
| Mon 24 Jul 2017 05.30 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 19.39 GMT | |
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| The sound is gulls, silence, the thin chatter of house martin chicks in lintel-nests. And the sea below, though at all tides it is a breathing, rather than a pervasive growl. By day you see Start Bay arcing many miles beneath the cliff. By night the lighthouse softly lights every sou’western-facing wall with a slow, silent rhythm.Benign. But then, not. This coastline restlessly resists permanence, even on human clocks, and the sea that will be the end of this place. Again.On a single night a century ago, Hallsands fell into the sea. The natural defences protecting the coast from winter storms had been pillaged and dredged for decades by industrialists: the shingle beach, the Skerries Bank. Pleadings from subsisting villagers were ignored or shushed. Then, on 26 January 1917, the waves clawed the village from the cliffs. | The sound is gulls, silence, the thin chatter of house martin chicks in lintel-nests. And the sea below, though at all tides it is a breathing, rather than a pervasive growl. By day you see Start Bay arcing many miles beneath the cliff. By night the lighthouse softly lights every sou’western-facing wall with a slow, silent rhythm.Benign. But then, not. This coastline restlessly resists permanence, even on human clocks, and the sea that will be the end of this place. Again.On a single night a century ago, Hallsands fell into the sea. The natural defences protecting the coast from winter storms had been pillaged and dredged for decades by industrialists: the shingle beach, the Skerries Bank. Pleadings from subsisting villagers were ignored or shushed. Then, on 26 January 1917, the waves clawed the village from the cliffs. |
| Today Hallsands is serene in slow peril. Beneath the cliff top is still a raw wound. There are two houses down there, still used, though they could “go” any moment. A lady tells me a building has gone since last summer. The cliffs are like gasping mouths. Purged of sediment, they are now lean ribs of rock descending into the sea like lethal slipways. New grass on old roofs confuses ruined masonry with cliffs. With a lingering look, rocks take shape to walls, old fireplaces, lurid lichen on roof-slate. | Today Hallsands is serene in slow peril. Beneath the cliff top is still a raw wound. There are two houses down there, still used, though they could “go” any moment. A lady tells me a building has gone since last summer. The cliffs are like gasping mouths. Purged of sediment, they are now lean ribs of rock descending into the sea like lethal slipways. New grass on old roofs confuses ruined masonry with cliffs. With a lingering look, rocks take shape to walls, old fireplaces, lurid lichen on roof-slate. |
| It’s what natural reclamation looks like. Nature’s prerogative, certainly, but accelerated unnaturally into human tragedy. The decision was recently made not to protect what remains of Hallsands. “No intervention,” the council says; an antiseptic death sentence, passed politely on paperwork. And a very bitter pill for residents. | It’s what natural reclamation looks like. Nature’s prerogative, certainly, but accelerated unnaturally into human tragedy. The decision was recently made not to protect what remains of Hallsands. “No intervention,” the council says; an antiseptic death sentence, passed politely on paperwork. And a very bitter pill for residents. |
| So now: where geological attrition and humanity meet, there’s this strip of purgatory-paradise, with a seductive psychology. All must accept this may not be a place to enjoy in the future, so enjoy it now. A sign carries a verse from a poem by John Masefield – written as a prophecy in 1903, now true – named Hallsands:But that its wretched ruins then, though sunken utterlyWill show how the brute greed of menHelps feed the greedy sea. | So now: where geological attrition and humanity meet, there’s this strip of purgatory-paradise, with a seductive psychology. All must accept this may not be a place to enjoy in the future, so enjoy it now. A sign carries a verse from a poem by John Masefield – written as a prophecy in 1903, now true – named Hallsands:But that its wretched ruins then, though sunken utterlyWill show how the brute greed of menHelps feed the greedy sea. |
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