Note 2529 — THE CONFIGURATION OF THE COAST OF KENT IN THE TIME OF CAESAR
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Dowker (Twenty-third Report East Kent Nat. Hist. Soc., 1881, p. 63) attributed this loss of shingle to the Admiralty Pier at Dover. ‘The formation of the Dover Harbour,’ he says, ‘has favoured the accumulation of beach west of that point; the current, moreover, after passing the obstacle, is deflected inland, and thus, at St. Margaret’s Bay, a former collection of beach is being removed towards Deal.’ On the other hand, Sir John Coode, who is described in the Dictionary of National Biography (Suppl., ii, 52) as ‘probably the most distinguished harbour engineer of the nineteenth century’, states (Parl. Papers, lviii, 1873, p. 455[3]) that ‘so far from the pier having acted as a check to the passage of the shingle, there has been a considerable loss to the westward of it within the last 20 years’. ‘I have no hesitation,’ he adds (ib., p. 456[4]), ‘in stating, in the most distinct and positive terms, that this decrease [of shingle on various parts of the coast south-west of St. Margaret’s Bay] has not been caused by “the extension of the Admiralty Pier at Dover”, inasmuch as the various facts that have been brought out in the course of my recent investigation lead distinctly and unmistakably to the opposite conclusion ... having regard to the facts previously stated, as to the diminution of shingle to the westward of Folkestone, near Sandgate and Hythe, &c. ... I have arrived at the conclusion that this [decrease of shingle between Dover and St. Margaret’s Bay] is due to the remarkable accumulation of shingle, and consequent projection towards the south-east of Dungeness’ (ib., p. 457[5]).
About the year 1721 the supply of shingle was temporarily cut off by the fall of part of the Castle Cliff. See Capt. John Perry, Account of the Stopping of Daggenham Breach, &c., 1721, p. 119.