Chesil Cove
Chesil Cove is a cove off the southernmost part of the eighteen mile long Chesil Beach. The beach is one of three major shingle structures in Britain, extending from West Bay to Portland, with the name "Chesil" being old English for pebble. It terminates at the northernmost point of West Weare and provides natural protection to the low lying village of Chiswell in Underhill.
Chesil Beach is considered a storm beach due to it being affected by particularly fierce waves. The site is sheltered from northern and eastern winds, but any wind above Force 3 from the south or west creates a swell. Following a storm, the beach, particularly at Portland's end, can have parts moulded into ridges and gullies, though these are temporary features. The size of the pebbles on Chesil Beach increases in size from West Bay's gravel-sized deposit to the larger pebbles at Chesil Cove.
To the south is West Weare and a footpath leading to Hallelujah Bay, while the land sculpture Chiswell Earthworks sits above the southern-most end of the beach. Overlooking the cove from West Weare is a group of beach huts, which first appeared in the area in the early 20th century.
Shipwrecks
Both Chesil Beach and Lyme Bay have been the location of many shipwrecks, particularly during the age of sail. Due to Chesil forming an extended lee shore during south-westerly gales, ships attempting to navigate around Portland regularly found themselves pushed into Lyme Bay and towards the beach during stormy conditions. Chesil Beach became infamously known as "Deadman's Bay", a name given to it by Thomas Hardy in his 1892 novel The Well Beloved. Fatalities could be considerable for ships wrecked in the area, although the introduction of rocket-fired lines in the 19th century allowed rescues to be attempted from the shore. Dramatic shipwrecks would continue into the 20th century, with a later example being the Madeleine Tristan in 1930.
Shipwreck list
Some of the ships wrecked at Chesil Cove include:
Flooding defences
The adjoining village of Chiswell was established predominately as a fishing community. Despite its vulnerability to sea storms and flooding, Chiswell continued to develop into a thriving community, and by 1782, it was Portland's largest settlement, with 100 of the island's 280 houses located there. However, the village suffered long-term decline after much destruction was caused by the "Great Storm of 1824". It resulted in the deaths of twenty-five residents and the destruction of thirty-six houses, with a further hundred rendered uninhabitable. The damage inflicted on Chiswell was so extensive that the village never made a full recovery and Fortuneswell soon became Underhill's main settlement.
Calls for a sea wall to protect Chiswell had been made as far back as the 1910s and the Portland Urban District Council drew up plans around 1931 for a 1,200 feet long wall. However, the issue of locating the required funding stopped such a scheme from going ahead, including another plan proposed by the engineers Coode & Partners in 1942. Construction of a reinforced concrete sea wall finally commenced in 1958, which was built in three parts and completed in 1965, spanning from the southern end of Chesil Cove to the location of the Cove House Inn. In addition to protecting Chiswell, the wall deterred further coastal erosion and future potential landslides at West Weare. An esplanade laid on top of the wall quickly became a popular attraction for walkers and visitors.
Despite the presence of the wall, widespread flooding occurred at Chiswell again in December 1978 and February 1979. The two incidents prompted Weymouth & Portland Borough Council and Wessex Water to immediately commission the consulting engineers Dobbie and Partners of Southampton to investigate how to further reduce the risk of flooding in the future. A four-stage scheme was put forward in July 1980 and the work carried out between 1981 and 1988 at a cost of £5 million. Firstly, a 150 metre trial installation of gabions (wire baskets containing pebbles) was added to raise and strengthen the beach's crest level north of the sea wall in 1981. Modification work to the wall was then carried out in 1982-83 by the contractor, Edmund Nuttall Limited. A concrete stepped revetment was added southwards from Brandy Row area towards West Weare to prevent the wall being undermined, and a wave return wall was constructed along the landward side of the esplanade.
A 600 metre interceptor drain and 900 metre flood alleviation channel was constructed adjacent to Portland Beach Road in 1985-87, with Dean & Dyball Ltd as the contractor. It was designed to collect seawater breaching Chesil's bank and then discharge it into Portland Harbour on the opposite side of the Portland Beach Road. Extensive surveying and trialling was required to determine the design and this included the testing of a cross section model of the beach in a wave flume at Hydraulics Research Limited's facilities in Wallingford. The final stage of the scheme saw Portland Beach Road (part of the A354) raised in height in 1987-88. The winter storms of December 1989 and January 1990 saw the Chesil bank breached and Portland cut off from the mainland, but the damage was considerably less severe than that of the 1978-79 storms. After a number of years monitoring the "technical and environmental aspects" of the trial gabions, the mid-1990s saw the existing section extended by a further 400 metres.
Later in January-February 2014, violent storms across the south-west of England caused some flooding to Chiswell and damage to the sea defences. Work commenced immediately afterwards on restructuring the beach and carrying out emergency repairs to the sea wall, gabions and other defences, with all the work being completed in September 2014.
Fishing
For centuries, Chesil Beach was the location of a thriving commercial fishing industry, with many of the fishermen operating from Chesil Cove being residents of Chiswell. Due to the difficult nature of Chesil's steep banking and the harsh conditions of Lyme Bay, local fishermen designed a fishing boat, known as a Lerret, suited for use on the beach. The earliest reference of these small boats dates to 1615. The launching and recovery of a Lerret was an arduous task, requiring considerable skill and knowledge of the coastline they were suited for. As Chesil's fishing industry gradually declined over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, so did the use of the Lerret. By the mid-20th century, most surviving examples were only used infrequently by part-time fishermen, with the Huddy family of Abbotsbury being the only full-time fishermen operating from Chesil Beach.
In 1849, Robert Kerr, a commander of the Royal Navy, described the boat: "The Portland lerret, of which there are two sizes, the largest 20 feet overall, used for mackerel fishing, and the smaller 17 feet overall, in which they go out with their crab-pots &c.; they are sharp at both ends, very flat floored, pulling generally six oars, double banked, that is, three each side, the oars being "copsed", that is, a large piece of wood or lug attached to the loom, having a hole in it for the thowlpin, which is soon fitted to the boat. They are all rigged with a lug, foresail, and sprit-mizen, steered with rudder, and have in the keel, just before the scarf-post, a hole, through which is rove a "start-rope", used for hauling the boat up stern foremost, so that she is always launched bow to sea, with two or more hands forward at the oars to keep her to when once on the water. They are beautiful sea-boats, never capsizing from their great beam and flat floor, and live in any surf."
In 2015, a Lerret named Silver Star, built in 1914, was donated by the Chesil Bank and Fleet Nature Reserve to the Castletown Regeneration Project. It underwent restoration by Clark Boatworks Ltd and was then put on display at Castletown in July 2016.
Both Chesil Beach and Chesil Cove are still used for recreational and small scale commercial fishing. Various species that can be caught include cod, wrasse, dog fish, whiting, pout conger and huss. During summer evenings, float fishing can catch scad, mackerel and garfish. The British record for shore-captured shore rockling was set at the cove in 1992.
Diving and wildlife
Chesil Cove is a popular site for scuba divers. As the cove is reasonably shallow (10 to 15 metres) and suffers little from tidal current, it serves as an ideal site for trainee divers. Despite many ships having been wrecked at the cove, few divable sites exist close to the beach due to its exposure to strong waves.
The cove provides a habitat for a range of south coast marine life such as nudibranch, dogfish, spider crab, lobster, cuttle fish, pipefish, triggerfish, sandeels, giant wrasse, bass and John Dory. An abundance of flora and fauna, such as kelp forests and snakelock anemone, have also flourished on the remains of the many wrecks off of the cove.
World War II
Due to its important naval base, Portland was a primary target for the German Luftwaffe during World War II. An air raid occurred on the evening of 30 June 1940, when a number of bombs were dropped, most of which fell into the sea at Chesil Cove. One bomb landed just above the beach, close to one of the cafes at West Weare, and although it did not explode, it is believed that this was the first German bomb to be dropped in this region of England.
References
The following is an A-Z list of references for this page.
1) Ancestry.com - Genealogy - Portland Year Book 1905 - Chronology of the Island of Portland 700 - 1905 AD - Paul Benyon - website page
2) BBC News Dorset - Portland homes evacuated as sirens sound for first time - January 2014 - website page
3) BBC News UK - UK storms: Waves crash over sea wall at Chiswell, overlooking Chesil Cove, Dorset - February 2014 - website page
4) British Beaches - Visitor information for Chesil Cove Beach, Portland, Dorset - website page
5) Burton Bradstock Online - Historical List of Shipwrecks at Chesil Beach & from Bridport to Lyme Regis - website page
6) Chesil Beach and Fleet Lagoon A-Z - C to D - website page
7) Chesil Beach and Fleet Lagoon A-Z - S to T - website page
8) Chiswell Community Trust - The History of the Site - website page
9) Content.swgfl.org.uk - Jurassic Coast - Chiswell View Today - website page
10) Do You Remember? - Portland's War - Part 2 - Sept. 1940 to Sept. 1941 - An Island Time Publication - Amusement World - page 2 - book
11) Dorset for You - Storms and Coastal Defences at Chiswell - Dorset Coast Forum - PDF document
12) Dorset Harbours - Donald Payne - 1953 - page 100 - book
13) Dorset Life - The Dorset Magazine - The Great Gale of 1824 - Luke Mouland - January 2013 - website page
14) Martin Harvey (martinharvey.com) - Divers Inshore: Chesil Cove - website page
15) Martin Harvey (martinharvey.com) - Divers Inshore: Preveza - website page
16) Parliamentary Papers - Accounts and Papers: Post Office; Railways; Navigation Laws; Shipping - Session: 1 February-1 August 1849 - Volume 51- page 579 - paper
17) Pastscape - Advanced Search Results Page for Chesil Cove - 37 Results - website page
18) PortlandBill.co.uk - Portland Fishing: Chesil Cove - website page
19) Portland Encyclopaedia - Rodney Legg - Dorset Publishing Company - 1999 - ISBN: 978-0948699566 - pages 26, 37 - book
20) Portland Picture Archive - Portland Shipwrecks - Geoff Kirby - website page
21) River Pack - Information Sheet - National Rivers Authority Wessex Region - September 1990 - report
22) The Book of the Chesil Beach - Dorset - John P. Kemp - Nigel J. Clarke Publications - 1985 - ISBN: 978-0907683186 - page 3 - book
23) The Guardian - Sirens heralded storm that changed the shape of Chesil beach - Steven Morris - January 2014 - website page
24) The Heritage Coast - Commercial Fishing: Lerrets - website page
25) Underwater Explorers - Chesil Cove Dive Guide (projectchesil) - website page
26) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - World Heritage Centre: Dorset and East Devon Coast - website page
Chesil Beach is considered a storm beach due to it being affected by particularly fierce waves. The site is sheltered from northern and eastern winds, but any wind above Force 3 from the south or west creates a swell. Following a storm, the beach, particularly at Portland's end, can have parts moulded into ridges and gullies, though these are temporary features. The size of the pebbles on Chesil Beach increases in size from West Bay's gravel-sized deposit to the larger pebbles at Chesil Cove.
To the south is West Weare and a footpath leading to Hallelujah Bay, while the land sculpture Chiswell Earthworks sits above the southern-most end of the beach. Overlooking the cove from West Weare is a group of beach huts, which first appeared in the area in the early 20th century.
Shipwrecks
Both Chesil Beach and Lyme Bay have been the location of many shipwrecks, particularly during the age of sail. Due to Chesil forming an extended lee shore during south-westerly gales, ships attempting to navigate around Portland regularly found themselves pushed into Lyme Bay and towards the beach during stormy conditions. Chesil Beach became infamously known as "Deadman's Bay", a name given to it by Thomas Hardy in his 1892 novel The Well Beloved. Fatalities could be considerable for ships wrecked in the area, although the introduction of rocket-fired lines in the 19th century allowed rescues to be attempted from the shore. Dramatic shipwrecks would continue into the 20th century, with a later example being the Madeleine Tristan in 1930.
Shipwreck list
Some of the ships wrecked at Chesil Cove include:
- John - 10 February 1669 - English cargo vessel, crew and cargo saved
- Angel Guardian - 1681 - cargo vessel, 6,000 oranges recovered
- Peter - 1685 - French cargo vessel, four hogsheads of French wine saved
- De Hoop - 1749 - Dutch West Indiaman, all crew saved
- Johanna Theresa - 12 January 1753 - Dutch craft, the captain and five men drowned
- Biscaye - 1754 - Spanish cargo vessel
- Fanny - 1760 - British brigantine involved in slave trade
- Zenobie - 12 January 1762 - French privateer
- Le Pelerin - August 1784 - French craft
- Nancy - 13 August 1793 - British brig, crew and part cargo saved
- Peggy - 1796 - American cargo vessel, four of eleven crew saved
- Rodney - 26 September 1799 - English brigantine vessel, all crew saved
- Concord - 26 September 1799 - English brigantine vessel, all crew saved
- Endeavour - May 1800 - British craft, all crew saved
- Nancy - March 1801 - British craft
- Le Mercuria - 4 March 1818 - 500-ton French vessel, 20-30 drowned
- Pollux - 17 October 1820 - brig, one crew lost
- Iris - 7 November 1823 - Swedish brig, the master and three of six crew men saved
- Wasster Norland - 26 November 1824 - Swedish sailing vessel, six of ten crew men saved
- Leonora - 30 November 1824 - Dutch Galliot, all crew and cargo lost
- Haabets Anker - 7 December 1828 - Norwegian brig, all crew saved
- Atlas - 7 December 1831 - American brig, nine of eleven crew saved
- Commodore - 12 January 1839 - Schooner, seven crew lost
- Amyntas - 30 November 1841 - English brig, master and three crew drowned
- Maria Johanna - April 1852 - Dutch galliot, four of crew of seven lost
- Emmanuel - 22 November 1865 - French brig, one crew lost
- Amalie - 1 February 1869 - German brig
- Edwin & Sarah - 5 January 1882 - ketch
- Sapphire - 8 August 1883 - English schooner, all crew of six saved by coastguard rocket apparatus
- Christiana - 2 September 1883 - Norwegian barque, eight of crew of ten saved
- Fannie C - 3 October 1890 - schooner, beached while on fire, 10 saved
- Ora et Labora - 13 October 1891 - Norwegian brig
- Emma Maria - 25 October 1903 - Russian schooner
- Patria - 26 October 1903 - Norwegian barque
- Dorothea - 14 February 1914 - Dutch cargo steamship
- Preveza - 15 January 1920 - Greek vessel
- Ellida - 1920 - salvage tug
- Madeleine Tristan - 20 September 1930 - French schooner, all crew saved
Flooding defences
The adjoining village of Chiswell was established predominately as a fishing community. Despite its vulnerability to sea storms and flooding, Chiswell continued to develop into a thriving community, and by 1782, it was Portland's largest settlement, with 100 of the island's 280 houses located there. However, the village suffered long-term decline after much destruction was caused by the "Great Storm of 1824". It resulted in the deaths of twenty-five residents and the destruction of thirty-six houses, with a further hundred rendered uninhabitable. The damage inflicted on Chiswell was so extensive that the village never made a full recovery and Fortuneswell soon became Underhill's main settlement.
Calls for a sea wall to protect Chiswell had been made as far back as the 1910s and the Portland Urban District Council drew up plans around 1931 for a 1,200 feet long wall. However, the issue of locating the required funding stopped such a scheme from going ahead, including another plan proposed by the engineers Coode & Partners in 1942. Construction of a reinforced concrete sea wall finally commenced in 1958, which was built in three parts and completed in 1965, spanning from the southern end of Chesil Cove to the location of the Cove House Inn. In addition to protecting Chiswell, the wall deterred further coastal erosion and future potential landslides at West Weare. An esplanade laid on top of the wall quickly became a popular attraction for walkers and visitors.
Despite the presence of the wall, widespread flooding occurred at Chiswell again in December 1978 and February 1979. The two incidents prompted Weymouth & Portland Borough Council and Wessex Water to immediately commission the consulting engineers Dobbie and Partners of Southampton to investigate how to further reduce the risk of flooding in the future. A four-stage scheme was put forward in July 1980 and the work carried out between 1981 and 1988 at a cost of £5 million. Firstly, a 150 metre trial installation of gabions (wire baskets containing pebbles) was added to raise and strengthen the beach's crest level north of the sea wall in 1981. Modification work to the wall was then carried out in 1982-83 by the contractor, Edmund Nuttall Limited. A concrete stepped revetment was added southwards from Brandy Row area towards West Weare to prevent the wall being undermined, and a wave return wall was constructed along the landward side of the esplanade.
A 600 metre interceptor drain and 900 metre flood alleviation channel was constructed adjacent to Portland Beach Road in 1985-87, with Dean & Dyball Ltd as the contractor. It was designed to collect seawater breaching Chesil's bank and then discharge it into Portland Harbour on the opposite side of the Portland Beach Road. Extensive surveying and trialling was required to determine the design and this included the testing of a cross section model of the beach in a wave flume at Hydraulics Research Limited's facilities in Wallingford. The final stage of the scheme saw Portland Beach Road (part of the A354) raised in height in 1987-88. The winter storms of December 1989 and January 1990 saw the Chesil bank breached and Portland cut off from the mainland, but the damage was considerably less severe than that of the 1978-79 storms. After a number of years monitoring the "technical and environmental aspects" of the trial gabions, the mid-1990s saw the existing section extended by a further 400 metres.
Later in January-February 2014, violent storms across the south-west of England caused some flooding to Chiswell and damage to the sea defences. Work commenced immediately afterwards on restructuring the beach and carrying out emergency repairs to the sea wall, gabions and other defences, with all the work being completed in September 2014.
Fishing
For centuries, Chesil Beach was the location of a thriving commercial fishing industry, with many of the fishermen operating from Chesil Cove being residents of Chiswell. Due to the difficult nature of Chesil's steep banking and the harsh conditions of Lyme Bay, local fishermen designed a fishing boat, known as a Lerret, suited for use on the beach. The earliest reference of these small boats dates to 1615. The launching and recovery of a Lerret was an arduous task, requiring considerable skill and knowledge of the coastline they were suited for. As Chesil's fishing industry gradually declined over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, so did the use of the Lerret. By the mid-20th century, most surviving examples were only used infrequently by part-time fishermen, with the Huddy family of Abbotsbury being the only full-time fishermen operating from Chesil Beach.
In 1849, Robert Kerr, a commander of the Royal Navy, described the boat: "The Portland lerret, of which there are two sizes, the largest 20 feet overall, used for mackerel fishing, and the smaller 17 feet overall, in which they go out with their crab-pots &c.; they are sharp at both ends, very flat floored, pulling generally six oars, double banked, that is, three each side, the oars being "copsed", that is, a large piece of wood or lug attached to the loom, having a hole in it for the thowlpin, which is soon fitted to the boat. They are all rigged with a lug, foresail, and sprit-mizen, steered with rudder, and have in the keel, just before the scarf-post, a hole, through which is rove a "start-rope", used for hauling the boat up stern foremost, so that she is always launched bow to sea, with two or more hands forward at the oars to keep her to when once on the water. They are beautiful sea-boats, never capsizing from their great beam and flat floor, and live in any surf."
In 2015, a Lerret named Silver Star, built in 1914, was donated by the Chesil Bank and Fleet Nature Reserve to the Castletown Regeneration Project. It underwent restoration by Clark Boatworks Ltd and was then put on display at Castletown in July 2016.
Both Chesil Beach and Chesil Cove are still used for recreational and small scale commercial fishing. Various species that can be caught include cod, wrasse, dog fish, whiting, pout conger and huss. During summer evenings, float fishing can catch scad, mackerel and garfish. The British record for shore-captured shore rockling was set at the cove in 1992.
Diving and wildlife
Chesil Cove is a popular site for scuba divers. As the cove is reasonably shallow (10 to 15 metres) and suffers little from tidal current, it serves as an ideal site for trainee divers. Despite many ships having been wrecked at the cove, few divable sites exist close to the beach due to its exposure to strong waves.
The cove provides a habitat for a range of south coast marine life such as nudibranch, dogfish, spider crab, lobster, cuttle fish, pipefish, triggerfish, sandeels, giant wrasse, bass and John Dory. An abundance of flora and fauna, such as kelp forests and snakelock anemone, have also flourished on the remains of the many wrecks off of the cove.
World War II
Due to its important naval base, Portland was a primary target for the German Luftwaffe during World War II. An air raid occurred on the evening of 30 June 1940, when a number of bombs were dropped, most of which fell into the sea at Chesil Cove. One bomb landed just above the beach, close to one of the cafes at West Weare, and although it did not explode, it is believed that this was the first German bomb to be dropped in this region of England.
References
The following is an A-Z list of references for this page.
1) Ancestry.com - Genealogy - Portland Year Book 1905 - Chronology of the Island of Portland 700 - 1905 AD - Paul Benyon - website page
2) BBC News Dorset - Portland homes evacuated as sirens sound for first time - January 2014 - website page
3) BBC News UK - UK storms: Waves crash over sea wall at Chiswell, overlooking Chesil Cove, Dorset - February 2014 - website page
4) British Beaches - Visitor information for Chesil Cove Beach, Portland, Dorset - website page
5) Burton Bradstock Online - Historical List of Shipwrecks at Chesil Beach & from Bridport to Lyme Regis - website page
6) Chesil Beach and Fleet Lagoon A-Z - C to D - website page
7) Chesil Beach and Fleet Lagoon A-Z - S to T - website page
8) Chiswell Community Trust - The History of the Site - website page
9) Content.swgfl.org.uk - Jurassic Coast - Chiswell View Today - website page
10) Do You Remember? - Portland's War - Part 2 - Sept. 1940 to Sept. 1941 - An Island Time Publication - Amusement World - page 2 - book
11) Dorset for You - Storms and Coastal Defences at Chiswell - Dorset Coast Forum - PDF document
12) Dorset Harbours - Donald Payne - 1953 - page 100 - book
13) Dorset Life - The Dorset Magazine - The Great Gale of 1824 - Luke Mouland - January 2013 - website page
14) Martin Harvey (martinharvey.com) - Divers Inshore: Chesil Cove - website page
15) Martin Harvey (martinharvey.com) - Divers Inshore: Preveza - website page
16) Parliamentary Papers - Accounts and Papers: Post Office; Railways; Navigation Laws; Shipping - Session: 1 February-1 August 1849 - Volume 51- page 579 - paper
17) Pastscape - Advanced Search Results Page for Chesil Cove - 37 Results - website page
18) PortlandBill.co.uk - Portland Fishing: Chesil Cove - website page
19) Portland Encyclopaedia - Rodney Legg - Dorset Publishing Company - 1999 - ISBN: 978-0948699566 - pages 26, 37 - book
20) Portland Picture Archive - Portland Shipwrecks - Geoff Kirby - website page
21) River Pack - Information Sheet - National Rivers Authority Wessex Region - September 1990 - report
22) The Book of the Chesil Beach - Dorset - John P. Kemp - Nigel J. Clarke Publications - 1985 - ISBN: 978-0907683186 - page 3 - book
23) The Guardian - Sirens heralded storm that changed the shape of Chesil beach - Steven Morris - January 2014 - website page
24) The Heritage Coast - Commercial Fishing: Lerrets - website page
25) Underwater Explorers - Chesil Cove Dive Guide (projectchesil) - website page
26) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - World Heritage Centre: Dorset and East Devon Coast - website page
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