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Latest News / Port-Eynon Beach

Some Notes on the History of Port-Eynon Beach

INTRODUCTION

Considerable criticism has been directed at dredging operations by Llanelli Sand Dredging on Helwick Bank (Area 373, which is located at Helwick Swatch in the middle of Helwick Bank, some 5.5–8.0 kilometres west of Port-Eynon Point) since 1993 as the primary cause of morphological changes of Gower beaches, particularly as a cause of the appearance of certain beaches, especially Port-Eynon beach, and as a cause of general reductions in sand elevations on Gower beaches.

This brief note examines the morphological appearance of Port-Eynon beach as mapped and described in historical sources, dating long before any dredging activity in the region. These historical sources are in the public domain.

STATEMENTS ABOUT THE APPEARANCE OF PORT-EYNON BEACH

It is a matter that has gone unnoticed generally but there is a distinct inconsistency in relation to chronology in the "popular" statements made by "critics" of dredging about the history of the beach appearance in Port-Eynon Bay.

The opinion put forward is that Port-Eynon beach was once predominantly sand covered, in time almost in perpetuity

Plate 1. Port-Eynon Beach in the recent past; date unknown but believed to be pre-1981. (Source. Postcard, Judges of Hastings)

but since dredging operations by Llanelli Sand Dredging began on Helwick Bank, the beach has been transformed into a surface where older sediments (predominantly clays and peats, known historically as the Submerged Forest Series, and lag gravels) have been exposed in place of sand cover.

However, in newsletters, newspapers, TV, radio, and the Internet, this basic scenario about the exposure of the Submerged Forest Series and lag gravels has been reported with inconsistent statements in respect of chronology, outlining one or other of two lines of argument:

• the older sediments have never been exposed within "recordable" time (sometimes quoted as within living memory), or
• the older sediments have been exposed previously, but covered up again within a short space of time (days/single figure weeks).

Examples of the former argument include

• "Suffering like no other beach on the peninsula, Port Eynon's once wide stretch of sandy bay has now receded drastically behind newly revealed rocky outcrops that had hitherto not been exposed here since prehistoric times." (Source. http://www.explore-gower.co.uk/port_eynon.htm)
  
  
• "Photographs show that Port Eynon beach, having stayed constant over a long period, has now suffered major sand loss. The peat beds on this beach which have been continually exposed since September 2000 are now breaking up due to the effects of tide erosion. They have been dated as between Bronze Age and pre-Roman Iron Age, and have not been previously exposed for long periods since they were laid down." (Source. Gower Society Newsletter, Spring 2001)
  
  
• "SAND on Port Eynon beach has not been as low as it is now for 1,000 years, archaeologists have claimed. Members of Glamorgan Archaeological Society…….." (Source: http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk; Site Search Word: Port-Eynon; Archive article: Sand levels spark fear; 7 February 2001)
  
  
• "Evidence of erosion at Port Eynon includes the appearance of an ancient forest, which it is estimated, has been unexposed for 2000 years." (Source: Marine dredging and beach erosion in Gower, South Wales, UK. Paper by M R Phillips and C E England. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on the Mediterranean Coastal Environment. MedCoast 2001, Tunisia, October 2001)

and examples of the second argument include

• "In the past the deposits, which are normally hidden beneath the sand, have disappeared in a matter of weeks. But this time they have remained exposed since September last year." (Source: http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk; Site Search Word: Port-Eynon; Archive article: Sand levels spark fear; 7 February 2001)
  
  
• "…….. called in the Glamorgan Archaeological Society to give its assessment. "They said the peat beds were somewhere between bronze age and pre-Roman iron age," he said. "In the past they had always been covered up within three weeks but this time they have been there since September and are still there now. " (Source: http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk; Site Search Word: Port-Eynon; Archive article: Sand levels spark fear; 7 February 2001)

Not only is there a fundamental difference in the chronological context of these two arguments but also there is a very valid third argument evident in public records, viz. the Submerged Forest Series and lag gravels have been exposed previously for long periods (measured in years) within "recordable" time.

This third argument has one fundamental consequence - exposures of the older sediments prior to 1964 would be due to factors that cannot be attributed to dredging.

PREVIOUS EXPOSURE OF THE SUBMERGED FOREST AND LAG GRAVELS

There are two sets of items of incontrovertible evidence that the Submerged Forest Series and the lag gravels have been exposed on Port-Eynon beach for long periods (measured in years) within the past 125 years: (1) historical, large-scale Ordnance Survey maps of Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore areas, and (2) scientific publications by a well-known geologist.

Historical Ordnance Survey Maps.

A company, Landmark Information Group, in conjunction with the Ordnance Survey, now provides a service of making historical, large-scale Ordnance Survey maps available in digital form.

For the Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore areas, maps at a scale of 1:2,500 are available for the years 1879, 1898, and 1915. In addition, there are several historical maps for the same era available at a scale of 1:10,560. Before examining these historical maps, it is necessary to review how foreshore terrain was categorised and represented in historical maps. For foreshore areas, the Ordnance Survey utilise mainly a basic geomorphological representation of rock, mud, sand, and shingle. The shingle representation includes any form of fine, medium, and coarse gravel, cobbles, and boulders, undifferentiated in terms of geological age, facies, or genesis. Historically, no separate hatching patterns were or are used for foreshore facies such as mussel beds or clay/peat outcrops such as the Submerged Forest Series and these facies were and are included in the shingle classification. Such usage can be confirmed by examination of the well-known exposures of the Submerged Forest Series in historical maps of the western Swansea Bay foreshore (1884 OS map at 1:10,560; 1899 OS map at 1:2,500; 1900 OS map at 1:10,560; and, 1917 OS map at 1:2,500), where the exposures are represented solely by the shingle pattern of hatching. Also, in historical and current editions of Admiralty Chart 1161 (Swansea Bay), the Submerged Forest Series exposures on the Swansea Bay foreshore are labelled as shingle. Therefore, in this article, the term shingle (italics) incorporates the Submerged Forest Series and lag gravels.

All of the historical Ordnance Survey maps (Figs.1-6 below) have been geo-referenced into AutoCAD Land Desktop for measurement purposes (Figs. 7-9 below).

Maps of Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore, 1879 (Fig.1 [PDF 434 KB], Fig.2 [PDF 534 KB], and Fig.7 [DWF 158 KB]). In addition to a relatively wide, linear shingle development along the High Water Mark (Ordinary Tides), which is interpreted as a possible storm beach development, there is a shingle outcrop on the Port-Eynon foreshore coincident with the central part of "Outcrop A" (see later text). CAD measurement of this outcrop gives an area of 4,022m², which, for comparative purposes, is about equivalent to the size of the playing surface at the Millenium Stadium, Cardiff.

Maps of Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore, 1898 (Fig.3 [PDF 537 KB], Fig.4 [PDF 578 KB] and Fig.8 [DWF 241 KB]). Unlike the 1879 map, the Port-Eynon foreshore outcrop of shingle has intercalated sand hatching. This can be interpreted as the shingle exposure being interspersed with sand, or the shingle being only slightly elevated above the surrounding sand cover. The area of exposure is comparable with the 1879 outcrop, being 4,073m², and the shingle development along the High Water Mark (Ordinary Tides) is also significantly less pronounced, being replaced largely by sand hatching. Therefore, the Port-Eynon foreshore appearance is interpreted as having a greater sand cover in 1898 than in 1879. However, eastwards, on the Horton foreshore, there is a development of a large outcrop of shingle intercalated with sand hatching, and in the eastern quarter of this shingle outcrop, rock pinnacles protrude through the shingle over an area of about 880m². Discounting the interpolated continuation of the High Water Mark shingle development (the possible storm beach) along the northern edge of this outcrop, CAD mapping gives a measurement of 35,971m² for its area (including the area of rock pinnacles). However, discounting the rock pinnacle area of 880m² and storm beach development, CAD measurements indicate that in total shingle occupied some 39,164m² of Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore in 1898.

Maps of Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore, 1915 (Fig. 5 [PDF 479 KB], Fig.6 [PDF 517 KB] and Fig.9 [DWF 201 KB]). On Port-Eynon foreshore, the shingle development along the High Water Mark has become re-established as a pronounced entity, although its width is not as great as evident in the 1879 map. Similarly, the foreshore outcrop is more discrete than in 1898, being slightly larger, CAD measurement giving an area of 4,655m². Also, on the Horton foreshore, the shingle exposure is more pronounced than in 1898 and slightly larger, having an area of 43,951m² (again, excluding the interpolated continuation of the High Water Mark shingle development). Once again, rock pinnacles are observed in the eastern part of the shingle exposure, extending over some 1890m². Discounting the rock pinnacle area, in 1915 some 46,716m² of shingle was exposed on Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore in total.

The area of exposure of the Submerged Forest Series and lag gravels was mapped in December 2000 (Fig.10 [DWF 443 KB]) for the annual report relating to dredging on Helwick Bank, A review of the Annual Monitoring Surveys of Helwick Bank and Adjacent Gower Beaches, 1999 to 2000. Four distinct outcrops were recognisable on Port-Eynon foreshore, having areas of 28,803m² (outcrop "A"), 7,816m² (outcrop "B"), 7,444m² (outcrop "C"), and 3,397m² (outcrop "D"), giving a total area of 47,460 m².

Therefore, the shingle exposure in 1915 was only slightly less in area than the exposure in December 2000.

In conclusion, the scenario of earlier exposures of older sediments, particularly 1898 to 1915, showed a different pattern to the late 20^th Century exposure of Submerged Forest Series and lag gravels. In the 1879, 1898, and 1915 OS maps, the Port-Eynon foreshore exposure had an area of 4,000-5,000m², but presently it is about 47,000m² in area. In contrast, the Horton foreshore exposure of about 36,000m² (1898) – 44,000m² (1915) is no longer evident, the present foreshore surface being sand cover and exposed rock. Present-day rock outcrops occupy about 5,000m² of the area that in 1915 was mapped by the OS as "shingle exposure (Fig. 10). The increased area of rock outcrops in place of rock pinnacles on Horton foreshore indicates that some of the 1915 shingle area was eroded (in order for the underlying bedrock to be exposed in the 1990s) and possibly the remainder of the shingle lies buried beneath present-day sand cover.

Scientific Publications

The late Professor T Neville George was a well-known figure in British geology and at one time he was head of the Department of Geology at University College Swansea, during which time he wrote many scientific papers on the geology of the Swansea and Gower district. Amongst their other content, two of these papers described the exposure of the Submerged Forest Series in Port-Eynon Bay, viz.

George, T.N., 1930. The Submerged Forest in Gower. Proceedings of the Swansea Scientific and Field Naturalists' Society. Vol.1, Part 4, 100-108.

and

George, T.N., 1932. The Quaternary Beaches of Gower. Proceedings of the Geologists Association. Vol.43, 291-324

In describing the Submerged Forest Series in the 1930 publication, George wrote:

The second sentence in the above extract indicates that the one area near low-water mark was exposed over a time period of years. The (then) "recently exposed" outcrop in the first sentence is coincident possibly with present-day outcrop B"; however, the above article indicates that the beach width of the higher exposure was 200 yards (182.8m), therefore, it was wider than the higher elongation of outcrop "B", mapped in December 2000, which was 148m wide. The third sentence indicates that at low-water mark, what is assumed to be sand cover over the peat was thin.

In the 1932 publication, George wrote

(page 306) "The submerged peat in Swansea and Port Eynon Bays rests on fluviatile and terrestrial deposits, which in turn are underlain by a marine or estuarine clay……."

Interpretation of this sentence is more subjective, and possibly, some might argue, inconclusive. However, from the way that it is written, and, considering that it is the practice of geological mapping to map visible outcrops as opposed to the inability to map that which cannot be seen, it is perfectly logical to assume that the peat was exposed at the time of this publication, some two years after the previous paper.

WHITHER THE DISPARITY?

The Gower S.O.S. website indicates that considerable photographic evidence has been collected showing the surface appearance of Port-Eynon beach mainly as viewed in Plate 1 and statements such as "Photographs show that Port Eynon beach, having stayed constant over a long period, has now suffered major sand loss"(Gower Society Newsletter Spring 2001) are indisputable for the appearance of Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore in the recent decades prior to the 1990s.

However, allusions that Port-Eynon and Horton foreshores have been exclusively sand-covered in perpetuity in time are incorrect. Whereas the historical OS maps and T.N. George's scientific papers might be regarded as "snap-shots" of the appearance of the foreshore, each of the items reviewed exhibits the same scenario - shingle being exposed. Also, the "snap-shot" time period extends over fifty three years.

As the time period of the earlier shingle exposures precedes the commencement of any dredging activity on Helwick Bank by well over thirty years, sand dredging could not have been a cause of the late 19^th Century/ early-mid 20^th Century shingle exposure on Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore. Therefore, features of the hydrodynamic regime in the vicinity of Gower and related beach processes would appear to be a more obvious cause.

WEATHER PATTERNS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

In the annual report relating to dredging on Helwick Bank, A review of the Annual Monitoring Surveys of Helwick Bank and Adjacent Gower Beaches, 1999 to 2000, attention was drawn to the influence of the major global climatological phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation upon the weather patterns of Northwest Europe.

The North Atlantic Oscillation Index is the difference in air pressure at sea level between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High (http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/cag/NAO/Whatisnao.html). The two basic "end-points" of the Index consist of (a) a strong Icelandic Low combined with a strong Azores High, and (b) a weak Azores High and high pressure in the North Atlantic.

A high Index generates warmer, maritime air over northwest Europe and is characterised by mild winters, with occasional deep and active mid-latitude storms developed south of Iceland (http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/nao.html). In contrast, a low Index produces very cold, dry winters.

Apart from the winter of 1996, the winters from 1987 right throughout the 1990s were of the high Index type (Fig.11 [JPG 32 KB]), accompanied by notable severe autumn/winter storms, e.g. the Burns Day Storm (25 January 1990), and, more recently, the October 2000 storms, which have been classified by the UK Meteorological Office as an "extreme weather event".

Fig.11 [JPG 32 KB] illustrates that the trend of the past 14 years is not unique in meteorological records, e.g. apart from 1917 and a couple of other winters, the period from 1903 to 1923 was dominated by high Index types of winter. Therefore, with the concomitant "warm, wet, and windy" winters in this period, the occurrence of a large area of shingle exposure on Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore in 1915 should come as no surprise.

In contrast, the 1950s and 1960s, and, to a slightly lesser extent, the 1940s, were dominated by low Index winters, periods of time when the relative absence of major storm events were ideal for constructive coastal processes, possibly manifest as the development of widespread sand cover on certain beaches.

CONCLUSIONS

"Popular" statements that the Submerged Forest Series and lag gravels in Port-Eynon Bay have (a) never been exposed within "recordable" time, or (b) been exposed briefly for days only and then re-covered by sand, are demonstrably untrue.

Dredging was first licensed on Helwick Bank in 1964, this being Area 163 on the East Helwick shoal area of Helwick Bank by Burry Sand Company. Therefore, for the time periods of the extensive exposure of foreshore shingle in historical Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 maps (1879-1915) and the description of the exposures in the early 1930s (George, 1930 and 1932), such exposures cannot be attributed to actions of dredging on Helwick Bank.

It could be argued that there has been three distinct phases of morphological appearance of the Port-Eynon and Horton foreshore between Sedgers Bank and The Cove at Horton over the past 125 years:

• Sand and subordinate shingle exposure (from at least 1879 to at least 1932, according to public record)

• Widespread sand cover ("early" mid to "early" late 20^th Century)

• Sand and subordinate shingle exposure (from the mid-1980s (?) to present-day)

POSTSCRIPT

Even in more recent times prior to the 1990s, when Port-Eynon beach had extensive sand cover, small areas of Submerged Forest Series were sometimes exposed. For example, the two images below are enlarged from two postcards (Fig.12 [JPG 87 KB]) acquired by Llanelli Sand Dredging, showing Port-Eynon beach at a time when sand cover was more extensive. The dates of the postcards are unknown; however, in the full-size version of Plate 3, the buoys marking the residual wreckage of the MV Prince Ivanhoe are evident, therefore, the bottom photograph is post-August 1981, and from the bathers and people sunbathing, the photograph was taken in the summer. The same buoys are not observed in the full-size version of Plate 2, thereby dating the photograph as pre-August 1981.

Plate 2 (top) and Plate 3 (bottom). Enlargements from postcards of Port-Eynon Beach. (Source. Judges of Hastings)

Even with the extensive sand cover, a small outcrop of the Submerged Forest Series is evident in both photographs (centre in Plate 2; about ¾ up in the vertical centreline of Plate 3), both being images of the west end of outcrop "A" (see earlier text). The outcrops are not part of Sedgers Bank, as both images show a patch of sand between Sedgers Bank and the clay/peat outcrop; moreover in the bottom image, there is a vehicle and trailer launching a boat via the sand strip.

Declaration

The historical Ordnance Survey maps in this article are used with permission.

Copyright © and/or Database Right Landmark Information Group and Ordnance Survey

Crown Copyright and/or Database Right 2001. All Rights Reserved.

Dr C M Davies

12 December 2001