COMPELLING PHOTOGRAPHY

CompellingPhotography Banner

Groynes at Glyne Gap

Social Links

Categorise

Recent Posts

Tags

1066 architecture Beach Belgium Bexhill Birds Black & White Boats Bodiam Castle Church Composite De La Warr Pavilion Dungeness East Sussex Environment Fishing Fleet Ghosts Harbour Arm Hastings History Isle of Wight Kent Landscape London Marine Court National Trust Old Town Panorama Perspective Pett Level Photography Pier Reflection Rye Rye Harbour Seascape St Leonards-on-Sea Storm Sunrise Sunset Trees War Memorial water Waves

Compelling Photography

Groynes, Glyne GapThe sun was beginning to set when these were taken, bringing out the lovely colour of the wet wood and iron work of the groynes at Glyne Gap. Groynes are designed to slow down the relentless action of longshore drift. To be instantly taken back to your GCSE Geography courses this short YouTube clip provides an excellent explanation of what longshore drift is. More interesting than the clip is the comments left by viewers. I never knew the subject could create such emotion. Click the images to view full size in Flickr.

Groynes, Glyne Gap

,
, , , , , ,

3 responses to “Groynes at Glyne Gap”

  1. Ro avatar
    Ro

    I love this – the colours are so rich and the top part of the groin looks like hammered bronze, an unusual shot but well done..

    Reply
  2. Mick Pelling avatar
    Mick Pelling

    It is fair to say that the whole of the very pebbly beach at Hastings is creation of long shore drift, and groynes.

    Large concrete groynes were built at the East end of Hastings in the 1830s, to trap the shingle, thus to build up the beach to protect the sea front properties from the effects of storms .

    A large amount of devastation over the years forced the council into action.

    Fairlight is a village along about 3 miles from Hastings. A very pleasant place, with a number of cliff top properties.

    Over the years, the shingle that lay at the base of the cliffs at Fairlight has disappeared ,long shore drift took it away,down towards Rye Bay, but the groynes at Hastings interfered with nature, and stopped the drift of shingle towards Fairlight.

    The result of this was that the cliffs to the east of Hastings were prone to attack by the sea, and being of sandstone and clays could not withstand the battering.

    At Fairlight the cliffs may have receded by as much as 100 metres causing many homes to fall into the sea, or to be abandoned .

    All of the shingle along the Hastings coast is “flint”. All of it has come from Beachy Head, near Eastbourne.

    Beachy Head is a chalk headland, and chalk forms in layers, separated by layers of flints. Erosion leads to the collapse of these cliffs, thus flints are released to feed “longshore drift”

    Reply
  3. Longshore Drift « compellingphotography

    […] a recent post of mine I provided a link that explained the action of longshore drift. Although it’s not something […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.