Blakeney Point (designated as Blakeney National Nature Reserve) is a national nature reserve situated near to the villages of Blakeney, Morston and Cley next the Sea on the north coast of Norfolk, England. Its main feature is a spit of shingle and sand dunes, but the reserve also includes salt marshes, tidal mudflats and reclaimed farmland. It has been managed by the National Trust since 1912, and lies within the North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest, which is additionally protected through Natura 2000, Special Protection Area (SPA), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Ramsar listings. The reserve is part of both an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), and a World Biosphere Reserve. The Point has been studied for more than a century, following pioneering ecological studies by botanist Francis Wall Oliver and a bird ringing programme initiated by ornithologist Emma Turner.
The area has a long history of human occupation; ruins of a medieval monastery and "Blakeney Chapel" (probably a domestic dwelling) are buried in the marshes. The towns sheltered by the shingle spit were once important harbours, but land reclamation schemes starting in the 17th century resulted in the silting up of the river channels. The reserve is important for breeding birds, especially terns, and its location makes it a major site for migrating birds in autumn. Up to 500 seals may gather at the end of the spit, and its sand and shingle hold a number of specialised invertebrates and plants, including the edible samphire, or "sea asparagus".
The many visitors who come to birdwatch, sail or for other outdoor recreations are important to the local economy, but the land-based activities jeopardize nesting birds and fragile habitats, especially the dunes. Some access restrictions on humans and dogs help to reduce the adverse effects, and trips to see the seals are usually undertaken by boat. The spit is a dynamic structure, gradually moving towards the coast and extending to the west. Land is lost to the sea as the spit rolls forward. The River Glaven can become blocked by the advancing shingle and cause flooding of Cley village, Cley Marshes nature reserve, and the environmentally important reclaimed grazing pastures, so the river has to be realigned every few decades.
Description
Blakeney Point, like most of the northern part of the marshes in this area, is part of the parish of Cley next the Sea. The main spit runs roughly west to east, and joins the mainland at Cley Beach before continuing onwards as a coastal ridge to Weybourne. It is approximately long, and is composed of a shingle bank which in places is in width and up to high. It has been estimated that there are 2.3 million m3 (82 million ft3) of shingle in the spit,Bridges (1998) p. 39. 97 per cent of which is derived from flint.Steers, J A in Allison & Morley (1989) p. 24.
The Point was formed by longshore drift and this movement continues westward; the spit lengthened by between 1886 and 1925. At the western end, the shingle curves south towards the mainland. This feature has developed several times over the years, giving the impression from the air of a series of hooks along the south side of the spit.Tansley (1939) pp. 848–849. Salt marshes have formed between the shingle curves and in front of the coasts sheltered by the spit, and sand dunes have accumulated at the Point's western end. Some of the shorter side ridges meet the main ridge at a steep angle due to the southward movement of the latter.Steers, J A in Allison & Morley (1989) p. 19. There is an area of reclaimed farmland, known as Blakeney Freshes, to the west of Cley Beach Road.
Norfolk Coast Path, an ancient long distance footpath, cuts across the south eastern corner of the reserve along the sea wall between the farmland and the salt marshes, and further west at Holme-next-the-Sea the trail joins Peddars Way. Retrieved 7 June 2012. The tip of Blakeney Point can be reached by walking up the shingle spit from the car park at Cley Beach, or by boats from the quay at Morston. The boat gives good views of the seal colonies and avoids the long walk over a difficult surface. The National Trust has an information centre and tea room at the quay, Retrieved 16 August 2012. and a visitor centre on the Point. The centre was formerly a lifeboat station and is open in the summer months.Dorling Kindersley (2009) p. 214. Halfway House, or the Watch House, is a building from Cley Beach car park. Originally built in the 19th century as a look-out for smugglers, it was used in succession as a coast guard station, by the Girl Guides, and as a holiday let.
History
To 1912
Norfolk has a long history of human occupation dating back to the Palaeolithic, and has produced many significant archaeological finds. Both modern and Neanderthal people were present in the area between 100,000 and 10,000 years ago, before the last glaciation, and humans returned as the ice retreated northwards. The archaeological record is poor until about 20,000 years ago, partly because of the very cold conditions that existed then, but also because the coastline was much further north than at present. As the ice retreated during the Mesolithic (10,000–5,000 BCE), the sea level rose, filling what is now the North Sea. This brought the Norfolk coastline much closer to its present line, so that many ancient sites are now under the sea in an area now known as Doggerland. Retrieved 18 September 2012.Robertson et al. (2005) pp. 9–22. Early Mesolithic flint tools with characteristic long blades up to Murphy (2009) p. 14. long found on the present-day coast at Titchwell Marsh date from a time when it was from the sea. Other flint tools have been found dating from the Upper Paleolithic (50,000–10,000 BCE) to the Neolithic (5,000–2,500 BCE).
An "eye" is an area of higher ground in the marshes, dry enough to support buildings. Blakeney's former Carmelite friary, founded in 1296 and dissolved in 1538, was built in such a location,Robertson et al. (2005) p. 36. and several fragments of plain roof tile and pantiles dating back to the 13th century have been found near the site of its ruins.Robertson et al. (2005) p. 143. Originally on the south side of the Glaven, Blakeney Eye had a ditched enclosure during the 11th and 12th centuries, and a building known as "Blakeney Chapel", which was occupied from the 14th century to around 1600, and again in the late 17th century. Despite its name, it is unlikely that it had a religious function. Nearly a third of the mostly 14th- to 16th-century pottery found within the larger and earlier of the two rooms was imported from the continent,Birks (2003) pp. 1–28. suggesting significant international trade at this time.Robinson (2006) pp. 3–5.Pevsner & Wilson (2002) pp. 394–397.
The spit sheltered the Glaven ports, Blakeney, Cley-next-the-Sea and Wiveton, which were important medieval harbours. Blakeney sent ships to help Edward I's war efforts in 1301, and between the 14th and 16th centuries it was the only Norfolk port between King's Lynn and Great Yarmouth to have customs officials. Blakeney Church has a second tower at its east end, an unusual feature in a rural parish church. It has been suggested that it acted as a beacon for mariners, Retrieved 10 September 2011. perhaps by aligning it with the taller west tower to guide ships into the navigable channel between the inlet's sandbanks; that this was not always successful is demonstrated by a number of wrecks in the haven, including a carvel-built wooden ship.
Land reclamation schemes, especially those by Henry Calthorpe in 1640 just to the west of Cley, led to the silting up of the Glaven shipping channel and relocation of Cley's wharf. Further enclosure in the mid-1820s aggravated the problem, and also allowed the shingle ridge at the beach to block the former tidal channel to the Salthouse marshes to the east of Cley. In an attempt to halt the decline, Thomas Telford was consulted in 1822, but his recommendations for reducing the silting were not implemented, and by 1840 almost all of Cley's trade had been lost.Pevsner & Wilson (2002) p. 435. The population stagnated, and the value of all property decreased sharply.Hume, Joseph. "Port of Cley and Blakeney" in appendix to Blakeney's shipping trade benefited from the silting up of its nearby rival, and in 1817 the channel to the Haven was deepened to improve access. Packet ships ran to Hull and London from 1840, but this trade declined as ships became too large for the harbour.
National Trust era
In the decades preceding World War I, this stretch of coast became famous for its wildfowling; locals were looking for food, but some more affluent visitors hunted to collect rare birds;Bishop (1983) pp. 9–13. Norfolk's first barred warbler was shot on the point in 1884. In 1901, the Blakeney and Cley Wild Bird Protection Society created a bird sanctuary and appointed as its "watcher", Bob Pinchen, the first of only six men, up to 2012, to hold that post.
In 1910, the owner of the Point, Augustus Cholmondeley Gough-Calthorpe, 6th Baron Calthorpe, leased the land to University College London (UCL), who also purchased the Old Lifeboat House at the end of the spit. When the baron died later that year, his heirs put Blakeney Point up for sale, raising the possibility of development.Ayres (2012) p. 123. In 1912, a public appeal initiated by Charles Rothschild and organised by UCL Professor Francis Wall Oliver and Dr Sidney Long enabled the purchase of Blakeney Point from the Calthorpe estate, and the land was then donated to the National Trust. UCL established a research centre at the Old Lifeboat House in 1913, where Oliver and his college pioneered the scientific study of Blakeney Point. The building is still used by students, and also acts as an information centre. Despite formal protection, the tern colony was not fenced off until the 1960s.
In 1930, the Point's first "watcher", Bob Pinchen, retired and was replaced by Billy Eales, who had assisted Pinchen the previous summer to "learn the job". His son, Ted Eales, succeeded him as warden when he died in early 1939. Ted Eales went on to work as a wildlife cameraman for Anglia Television during the winter and served as the Point's warden until retiring in March 1980. Subsequent wardens have included Joe Reed and wildlife presenter Ajay Tegala. Bob Pinchen, Ted Eales and Ajay Tegala have all written books about their experiences on Blakeney Point as watcher, warden and ranger respectively, the latter being Tegala's The Unique Life of a Ranger: Seasons of Change on Blakeney Point.
The Point was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1954, along with the adjacent Cley Marshes reserve, and subsumed into the newly created North Norfolk Coast SSSI in 1986. The larger area is now additionally protected through Natura 2000, Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar listings, IUCN category IV (habitat/species management area) and is part of the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Retrieved 8 November 2011. The Point became a National Nature Reserve (NNR) in 1994, and the coast from Holkham NNR to Salthouse, together with Scolt Head Island, became a Biosphere Reserve in 1976.Liley (2008) pp. 4–6.
Fauna and flora
Birds