CHARNEY HALL Morecambe Bay
Blog update 13-3-2024 - Photo and poem added
Morecambe Bay from Yewbarrow ‘Face’
Charney Hall School and Morecambe Bay were inseparable. ‘The Bay’ as we knew it, formed the backdrop to all activities undertaken at the school. The French Impressionists made constant reference to the quality of light found in the South of France but to experience the constantly changing subtleties of light and shade falling across the sands was something else.
Some of the sunsets after a hot, blue-sky day in the Summer term were unforgettable.
Most boys learnt to recognise the familiar shape of Arnside Knott across the Kent estuary within the first few weeks of their first term. The Knott or at least Arnside, was also the home of Earnseat Preparatory School who we habitually thrashed each year in the games of cricket and football - a result that was not necessarily guaranteed with other schools.
In the Autumn the illuminations at Morecambe could be seen from the Dining Room twinkling in the dark nights, setting the town ablaze, far along the bay’s coastline to the south.
We saw The Bay in the Summer term whilst playing cricket, whilst walking at ‘present arms’ with .22 rifles to the shooting range and it was there when we ran on Hampsfell and when we walked along Grange promenade.
The promenade perambulations and visits to Grange Lido (the now famous 1930s open-air saltwater swimming pool) in the Summer Term, gave us a chance to see it up close and personal.
It was here that we heard the siren and learnt about its significance - that of warning hapless people who may have ventured onto the sands that the tidal bore was fast approaching. It gave them an hour to get their bearings and head for the nearest shoreline, wading across any channels which would soon prevent safe passage.
In the 1950s the main channel of the River Kent ran close and parallel to the promenade until it reached the swimming pool where it turned away from the north coast and headed southwards towards the seaside town of Morecambe. It was up this channel that the tidal bore, running at 6 knots and up to 600mm (2’0 ft.) high would surge, thereafter bringing about a dramatic change to the sandscape. In the vast open space of Morecambe Bay it appeared small and insignificant, especially when spotted from the School Dining Room. But we knew that it was a relentless, unstoppable force not to be meddled with.
John Bartholomew’s Map of 1905
Sandscape (at Grange, more silty mud than muddy sand) soon became seascape, faster than we could ever believe, as the flat bay sands flooded behind the bore. We were warned that The Bay was a dangerous place and anyone who ventured across the many channels and dykes onto the flats beyond, had to know the sands intimately. There were quicksands which mysteriously moved from day to day. Cocklers would mark them with sticks because if their carts or tractors ever crossed them, they risked losing all their equipment - the sand would take all and their lives could be at risk. We could not think of a worse way to die - sinking slowly, any movement making things infinitely worse, up to one’s neck….and then the inevitable extinguishing of a life…. I couldn’t contemplate things further. The Bay was to remain a backdrop, a theatrical scenery flat, to be hung at a distance towards the back of the stage, and not to be explored in any great detail.
So whilst the familiar face of The Bay was part and parcel of our time at Charney, it remained elusive, somewhat unforthcoming, jealously guarding its secrets during our time at school.
Things have changed over the last 164 years. The channels are dynamic entities, changing their position from north to south, east to west sides of the coast and all points between. They are subject to the many unseen forces of the twice daily push and shove of wind and tide against river flow. The deposition of sands and sediments, the appearance of Spartina grass which precedes the formation of sand marshes and the hard and soft perimeters of the coastline all play their unpredictable part. The hard constraints could either be natural in the form of rock outcrops such as Holme Island or man-made artefacts such as the Furness Railway completed in 1857 with further work being carried out during WW1, with its mighty viaduct and embankments which have been responsible for much land reclamation and laying down of salt marshes along some of its length.
Silverdale’s Rocky Windswept Headland
Several environmental studies have been conducted in the past but whatever the main thrust of the research, what is made clear is that the Bay has a life of its own, with the main channel moving north and south at will, creating sand marshes on the opposite side of the bay to the main channel only to be swept away by the inevitable cyclical return of the channel to the other side.
The grass marshes have made a comparatively recent appearance. The emergence of Spartina Anglica in 1967 at Humphrey Head, a grass originally planted along the south coast of England to stabilise coastal erosion, announced its arrival in the Grange area. The innocent clumps of grass stem the tidal current sufficiently to trap sediments which raise the sea bed. The right conditions are thus created for other grasses, principally Puccinellia Maritima, Festuca Rubra and Juncus Gerardii (Saltmarsh Rush) to consolidate the shoreline and promote the formation of sea washed meadows, laced with mud creeks.
The prophetic warnings of Charney Hall masters came to tragic reality years after the demolition of the school on the night of 5th February 2004 when 21 Chinese cocklers (2 more subsequently died in hospital) were drowned because their gang-master misread the times of the tides. The cocklers themselves, having only recently been illegally trafficked specifically for this work, may not have even been aware of the immense danger that they were putting themselves in.
In essence nature has created a spider’s web of channels and dykes which, when the bay floods, allow the incoming tide to form a pincer movement. Invariably there are large secondary channels running up close to both east and west shorelines which effectively cut off unwary people from the safety of the land. What was formerly a slow moving pool of water, capable of being paddled across with ease, reverts in a matter of minutes into a waist-deep unstoppable force, strong enough to sweep walkers off their feet.
Google Earth with additions
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morecambe_Bay
https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/158337/1/Pringle_Morecambe_Bay.pdf
https://www.hslc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/115-8-Rollinson.pdf
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/6686/1/HarwoodReportW6.0_95.pdf
Comments
So off we squelched, straight out from the shore, presumably looking at things left by the outgoing tide, and moaning about how cold our feet were, the teacher trying to explain whatever we were out there to see. But we’d only been out on the sands for about half an hour when far away the siren sounded, and the teacher announced in a very urgent voice that we needed to head back IMMEDIATELY and to hurry up. The teacher took off at a very rapid pace back the way we had come, and we did our best to keep up but didn’t understand the urgency and we would dawdle occasionally to look at something on the sand and were told in no uncertain times to GET A MOVE ON, all the while the teacher was looking back towards the bay with what we began to realize was a very alarmed expression.
We were probably about two-thirds of the way back when the first tiny wave of icy cold water slid past us and kept going towards the shore. That was the first time I’d seen a wave come in and not go back out again, and I was just thinking about how odd that was, when another one followed it a few moments later. The teacher was getting really very worried now, turning around every 30 seconds urging us to walk faster, and then as we came closer to shore and could see people on the Prom watching us, we were to told to run if we could. So we broke formation and ran splashing through the incoming water which was now getting ankle deep, and was very cold, and not at all fun any more. By the time we arrived at the steps up to the prom, gasping and cold and wet, the water was close to our knees.
The teacher obviously had a pretty good idea how close we’d all come to getting into very serious trouble indeed, but didn’t say so, and said something like “Well that was enjoyable wasn’t it?” And being young, naïve and accustomed to being told that running around in cold wet and unpleasant environments was character-building and something we were supposed to enjoy, we agreed. And since none of us had drowned or been sucked out to sea, we must have looked on it as just another organized deathmarch that we were glad was over, and none of us remarked on our narrow escape again. But there were no more school walks on the sands after that.
Great comment Andrew! 😲