May 2018

Having considered Sunk Island the authors of Tidal Lands then describe the clay banks of ‘Holland’ in some detail. The background to this is that about 50% of the Netherlands is below one metre above sea level, 28% being below sea level. The techniques of reclaiming coastal lowlands have been pioneered by the Dutch since the […]

‘This art (the ‘inning’ of saltings and coastal marshes) is coeval with civilisation’ (Tidal Lands, p.121). The authors use the interesting term ‘slob land’ to define un-reclaimed coastal lowland marsh land (often saltmarsh) – whether the word ‘slob’ was first used in its human context or environmental context I have yet to find out, in neither

With being published in 1918 Tidal Lands (s.p.b.s) considers the reclamation of lowland foreshores to be an automatic good (waste land made productive), nowhere do the authors hint at any sense of loss when changing the shoreline ecosystem. The photo above (p. 167) shows the vegetated ‘high saltmarsh’ being grazed by horses and, in the

Of course not all linear flood defences are just banks of clay soil. For example, yesterday had a short walk along the ‘bank’ at Goxhill Ferry, with very clear views along the Estuary frontage of Hull, here the seaward slope of the bank is reinforced with natural stone blocks laid to fit together then bonded by a

An informative site re the above is Gov. UK – Environmental Management – Wildlife and Habitat Conservation (this jointly published by Natural England, Environment Agency and Department of the Environment). Although persons can be fined or imprisoned for allowing pernicious weeds to spread from their land to that of a neighbour or into ‘the wild’ it

Firstly a mistake, the woad on the Humber bank is more likely to be yellow rocket, Barberea vulgaris, associated historically with a young Greek woman, Barbara, killed by Roman soldiers in A.D. 235 and later canonised by the Roman Catholic Church. Vulgaris = common (‘of damp places and riversides’). The above picture is taken (internet)