Cromer to Sheringham 17th September 2020
We have locked up our bikes at the caravan site and returned to walking today. As we park the car we consider ourselves fortunate to have found a small cul-de-sac just a short walk from Cromer town centre. This always feels a bit of a difficult moment, with me anticipating someone coming out of their house and castigating us for not using the car park. It does happen.
A quick change into walking boots and we are away into the town, looking in shop windows as we make our way to the sea front. We pass the attractive parish church, dedicated to St Peter and St Paul. It appears as though the dedication of two saints is a case of hedging your bets – if one doesn’t come up trumps then perhaps the other will. My reading of the Bible suggests that they were not necessarily the closest of buddies, unlike many of the apostles. Paul was a bit of a late-comer who ploughed his own furrow, so I hope the joint dedication doesn’t lead to any falling-out.
Some nice narrow lanes take us away from the main road, before we are treated to a grand view down onto Cromer Pier.
I can’t recall any other seaside town in the UK where you get to look down on the pier from such a lofty vantage point. It almost feels like standing on the bridge of a ship looking down on the bows, as they cut through the choppy waters of the North Sea.
We have views of the cliffs both East and West. Those to the east look quite stable, with most of the landslips appearing to have been some time ago, judging by the growth of trees. Off to the west the cliffs are tall and sheer and are quite obviously actively eroding. The obligatory Norfolk static caravan park sits on top, wheels at the ready I suspect, in case the ground should disappear beneath them. Doubtless they have an excellent view of the town and the church from there.
Despite the pandemic there are lots of people milling about, although to their credit the council displays lots of signs instructing us all about keeping our distance and where we can and can’t go. Most people appear to be acting responsibly, which is just as well since most of us are over 60 and in the high risk category!
We are treated to a cloudless sky and a lovely sandy beach.
The scattering of pebbles does not detract from its allure, but we resist the urge to take bucket and spade, choosing to head off westwards instead. The amusements that usually litter the promenades of most seaside towns are largely absent at Cromer – a definite plus.
There may not be windmill-topped sand-castles on the beach, but there are plenty of the ‘windmills’ offshore, where some 70 wind turbines (and 70 more further out), offer a spectacle for the telescope-packing pundit to focus upon.
Walking westward towards Sheringham, we get a close-up view of the precipitous cliffs littered with land slips, including rafts of reinforced concrete that have found their way down to beach level.
It is evident here that people also add to the erosion of the cliffs, especially where they have attempted to climb them.
Despite all the obvious signs of instability it is noteworthy that swards of marram grass have colonised the upper beach, which suggests the sea rarely advances this far during the summer months.
Marram grass
The sun shining down on sea and sand
The winter will offer a different perspective, with storms bearing down from the north pushing seas further and further up the beach until the waves continue their lashing of the lower cliffs and their subsequent collapse. I suspect a winter visit may be on the cards if the pandemic permits it.
Looking at and interpreting the processes involved in cliff formation is always fascinating. Here on the Norfolk Coast we are able to see a less well-known process – folding of the glacial till by thrusting ice sheets, with the soft sediments impressively contorted.
Shortly we make East Runton, where a small fishing fleet is launched from the concrete slipway.
West of East Runton the cliffs appear a bit more resistant to erosion, with the sea evidently battering away at the cliffs all year round. The resistant chalk here leads to more lasting features including a distinct wave-cut notch at their base. Flint pebbles carried by crashing seas have ground an impressive vertical ‘chimney’ structure into the cliffs, which stolidly resist the perpetual onslaught. However, there can only be one victor in the long-term.
The chimney
The circular remains of a concrete gun emplacement mark the position of the cliffs some 80 years ago – 28 metres from the current cliff-line. I calculate the rate of retreat at about 35cm per year.
Concrete 28m from the Cliffs
At one point we find chalk sitting upon a fine-grained mudstone (see photo above), but the boundary between the two rock types is not the usual gradation from one to the other. It appears that the (older) mudstone here once formed a wave-cut platform, having been scoured by ancient seas into an uneven surface. At some later stage, through the magic of geological time, this former wave-cut platform found itself on the sea bed further out at sea, where the tests of millions of microscopic animals came to rest and formed several metres of chalk above.
As we approach West Runton, the chalk cliffs give way to the softer glacial sediments seen earlier. Once again erosion by holiday-makers is accelerating the work of the sea as the cliffs retreat rapidly.
We decide to stop for an al-fresco lunch here, before pressing on towards Sheringham. Beyond West Runton it is evident that man has been battling the seas for at least the last century. What remains of a massive wooden breakwater defence structure probably once reduced the sea’s impact on the cliffs here. All that remains today is the polished wood of the supporting struts, with most of the planked revetment removed.
The chalk earlier encountered in the cliffs now appears in the wave-cut platform, indicating that the bedding planes here dip westward. Within the chalk are horizons of massive flint nodules which provide firm foundations for the holdfast ‘root’ system of fucoid algae like bladder wrack.
Fucoid algae like bladder wrack.
The skeletal remains of groynes likewise provide a firm foundation for brown algae and encrusting invertebrates such as limpets, barnacles and mussels. Groynes like these would once have been put in place to stabilise the sand and prevent its removal by the sea. It is evident that they are no longer doing their job, with little sign of a sandy beach here, just the slippery white chalk wave-cut platform.
As we approach Sheringham a massive glacial fold dominates the sediment of the cliffs, illustrating the awesome power of moving ice as it moved southward driven by the massive ice sheets that spread from the frozen wastes of Scandinavia during the Ice Age.
It was at this time that the chalk from millions of years earlier was shaped into a ridge offshore, now known as The Cromer Ridge. It is the largest chalk reef in Europe, being our own Great Barrier Reef and is home to several hundred marine species, including lobsters, sea slugs and the famous Cromer and Sheringham Crab enjoyed by holiday-makers to the area and exported further afield to restaurants on the continent.
At Sheringham, the earlier wooden revetment has been replaced by 21st century boulder groins and riprap to hold back the sea.
All this energy expenditure by the forces of nature proves too much for us, as we decide to return to Cromer by gentle wooded inland footpaths. As we pass empty beach huts we stumble across an ice-cream vendor who is just about to shut-up shop. We are just in time for a seaside delight, which we make short work of as we watch a few small children playing on the beach.
Ice-cream finished, we climb the road up past lines of pebble adorned cottages. Flint pebbles would once have been essential building stone, before modern transport made the use of bricks and concrete a cheaper alternative. (photo and flint walls photo)
On returning to Cromer we time things just right to enjoy a glorious setting sun and high tide. The combination of fading light and huge waves lashing the pier and sea wall is one of the lasting images of this stretch of the British coastline.
Heading back to the car we pass the Hotel de Paris, a large Victorian red-brick building which has commanding views over the pier.
Through the windows all is busy, as throngs of OAPs sit gorging on fish and chips, watching the combination of sunset and thrashing seas below. The absence of anything other than grey hairs amongst the clientelle gives the hotel a retirement home appearance.
Cromer is definitely for those of us of more advanced years. However, this pair of over 60s still have enough life in them to look forward to another day’s walking tomorrow – Sheringham to Blakeney. However, the sight of so many tucking into the local seafood is enough to drive us to the local chippy and get our own bundles of ‘fruits-de-la-mere’.