Cley Marshes

Coordinates: 52°57′32″N 1°03′22″E / 52.959°N 1.056°E / 52.959; 1.056
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

NWT Cley Marshes
Looking north across the reserve
Map showing the location of NWT Cley Marshes
Map showing the location of NWT Cley Marshes
Cley Marshes shown within Norfolk
LocationNorfolk, East of England, England
Coordinates52°57′32″N 1°03′22″E / 52.959°N 1.056°E / 52.959; 1.056
Established1926 (1926)
Websitewww.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/cley

Cley Marshes is a 176-hectare (430-acre) nature reserve on the North Sea coast of England just outside the village of Cley next the Sea, Norfolk. A reserve since 1926, it is the oldest of the reserves belonging to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT), which is itself the oldest county Wildlife Trust in the United Kingdom. Cley Marshes protects an area of reed beds, freshwater marsh, pools and wet meadows and is part of the North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Special Area of Conservation (SAC), Special Protection Area (SPA), and Ramsar Site due to the large numbers of birds it attracts.

The reserve is important for some scarce breeding species, such as pied avocets on the islands, and western marsh harriers, Eurasian bitterns and bearded reedlings in the reeds, and is also a major migration stopoff and wintering site. There are also several nationally or locally scarce invertebrates and plants specialised for this coastal habitat. It has five bird hides and an environmentally friendly visitor centre and further expansion is planned through the acquisition of neighbouring land and improvements to visitor facilities.

The site has a long history of human occupation, from

prehistoric farming to its use as a prisoner of war camp in the Second World War. The reserve attracts large numbers of visitors, contributing significantly to the economy of Cley village. Despite centuries of embankment to reclaim land and protect the village, the marshes have been flooded many times, and the southward march of the coastal shingle bank and encroachment by the sea make it inevitable that the reserve will eventually be lost. New wetlands
are being created further inland to compensate for the loss of coastal habitats.

History

Prehistory to 1926

Norfolk has a long history of human occupation. Both

Modern and Neanderthal people were present in the area before the last glaciation between 100,000 and 10,000 years ago, and humans returned as the ice retreated northwards. The archaeological record is poor until about 20,000 years ago, partly because of the prevailing conditions, but also because the coastline was much further north than at present. As the ice retreated during the Mesolithic, the sea level rose, filling what is now the North Sea. This brought the Norfolk coastline much closer to its present line, so that many ancient sites are now under the sea. The oldest signs of habitation on the marshes are prehistoric Clactonian flint blades possibly from 400,000 years ago, but few other prehistoric remains have been recorded here.[1]

Thomas Telford's recommendations for keeping the access to Cley port open were not implemented.

Fragments of a

post-medieval earthworks, presumably sea defences, and pits which may have been associated with salt-making.[3]

Until the mid-1600s, much of the area now known as Cley Marshes was part of a vast tidal marsh and was covered by

embanking the marshes to reclaim the land in 1522, and his banks were extended and improved by Dutchman Jan van Hasedunch from 1630. Simon Britiff, Lord of the local Manor of Cley, completed the scheme by building the bank on the east side of the Cley channel. Only the east and west banks have survived; the north bank was breached by the sea in 1897,[7] then rebuilt with a concrete facing, but abandoned after another bad storm in 1921.[6]

Cley and nearby

right of way across the marshes.[6]

In the decades preceding World War I, this stretch of coast became famous for its wildfowling; locals were looking for food, but some "Gentleman Gunners" hunted to collect rare birds. One of the best known of the latter was E. C. Arnold, who collected for more than fifty years, and gave his name to the marsh at the north-east corner of the present reserve.[10]

Nature reserve era

Looking inland across the reserve

Cley Marshes reserve was created in 1926 when Norfolk

birdwatcher Dr Sydney Long bought the land which now makes up the reserve for the sum of £5,100, to be held "in perpetuity as a bird breeding sanctuary". Long then established the Norfolk Wildlife Trust.[11][12]

The reserve was extended in 1962 through the lease of the adjacent 11-hectare (27-acre) Arnold's Marsh from the

National Trust;[13] this had long been the primary feeding area for waders, but much of the best habitat had been lost to the advancing shingle ridge. New pools and hides were created on the reserve from 1964, and the sale of permits for access to the hides became a useful source of income for the NWT.[14] Further pools and hides were established during the 1970s, and a visitor centre was built in 1981 on the site of the current building.[6]

Over the long history of the reserve, it has had only three wardens, all from the same family. Robert Bishop was warden from 1926 to 1937, and was followed by his grandson, Billy, from 1937 to 1978. Billy's son, Bernard, who was appointed in 1978, is still managing the reserve.[10][15][16][17]

The reserve now covers 176 hectares (430 acres),

Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).[18][19] The reserve has been referred to as "a Mecca for birdwatchers".[20]

Second World War coastal fortifications

Extant World War II pillbox at end of west bank

During the

minefield,[3] and concrete anti-tank blocks. A spigot mortar emplacement and an Allan Williams Turret machine gun emplacement were sited closer to the village. One of the pillboxes and remains of the beach gun emplacements were still surviving as of 2012.[21]

The military camp held 160 men and was later used to hold

coastguard service as an observation post. It was acquired by the NWT in 1983, and the upper part was used as a look-out, while the larger lower section became a beach café.[22] The building was overwhelmed by shingle in a storm in 2008 and subsequently demolished.[23]

Access and facilities

   Reed bed    Pasture    Shingle
  Car parks    Visitor centre and hides

The reserve is to the north of the A149 coast road just east of the village of Cley next the Sea, 6 km (3.7 mi) north of Holt. The visitor centre and car park are to the south of the road, opposite the reserve. The reserve can be reached by public transport using the bus service that stops outside the visitor centre.[16]

The reserve is viewable from the visitor centre, footpaths next to the A149 and down the East Bank, the beach and the road running from the beach back to the main road. It can be accessed by footpaths at three points, each leading to one or more

long distance footpath.[25]

The present visitor centre, which opened in June 2007, is on a small hill overlooking the reserve. It contains a café and shop, and is open daily. The reserve and hides are open at all times, with free access to NWT members, although non-members must buy a permit.[16]

The visitor centre is built on

geothermal heat pumps.[16] It has won a number of awards including the Emirates Glass LEAF architectural award for the sustainability category.[26] The success of the centre has led to plans to develop it further, offering more services and educational facilities and enhancing its profitability for the Trust.[27] The centre and four of the five bird hides are accessible to wheelchair users.[16]

In 2012 the NWT launched a public appeal to raise £1 million to purchase 58 hectares (143 acres) of private land immediately to the east of the existing reserve, and adjoining the existing 66 ha (163 acre) Trust reserve at Salthouse Marshes. This purchase would create a unified 8 km (5 mi) stretch of NWT-owned coastal land and expand the Cley reserve by one-third.[28][29]

Fauna and flora

Birds

Bearded reedling

The key breeding species are reed bed specialists such as the marsh harrier, Eurasian bittern and bearded reedling, and the island-nesting avocet. Other birds nesting in the wetland include

reed and Cetti's warblers. Eurasian spoonbills, ruffs and black-tailed godwits are present for much of the year,[30] and a pair of little egrets bred for the first time in 2010–2012.[16][31]

Spring

sea lettuce and other green algae.[32] Barn owls and sometimes hen harriers quarter the marshes in winter, and snow bunting flocks can be found on the beach.[30]

The reserve's location means that

vagrant rarities,[35] including a western sandpiper in 2012,[36] a displaying great snipe in 2011,[37] a trumpeter finch in 2010[38] and a collared pratincole in 2009.[39] In order to maintain a good habitat, parts of the reed bed are cut and sold for thatch each year to establish a mosaic of plants of different ages.[24]

Other animals

Atlantic ditch shrimp

European otters may be seen, with spraints regularly found at the southern end of East Bank. The common frog, common toad and common lizard all occur on the reserve.[42]

Arnold's Marsh and the other lagoons nearest the beach are salty due to the percolation of seawater through the shingle bank.

Atlantic ditch shrimp, the mysid shrimps Paramysis nouveli and Neomysis integer, lagoon cockle, the bug Orthotylus rubidus[42][43] and spire snail.[44] Little whirlpool ramshorn snail has been found in a freshwater channel. Rare beetles associated with these coastal environments include yellow pogonus, Bembidion ephippium and Tachys scutellaris.[42] These marshes are the only reliable UK site for the Pogonus species, and even here it is localised and hard to find.[45]

Plants

Annual beard grass

The shingle ridge that protects the reserve from the sea and extends to Blakeney Point attracts

sea aster, then mainly sea lavender, with sea purslane in the creeks and smaller areas of sea plantain and other common marsh plants.[18] The uncommon spiral tasselweed and long-bracted sedge are other saltmarsh specialists. The upper saltmarsh has a number of scarce species including lesser centaury, curved hard-grass and sea pearlwort, with soft hornwort in the dykes.[42]

The drier areas of the reserve contain maritime grasses such as

cuspidate earth-moss is found at Salthouse.[42]

Recreation

The visitor centre attracts more than 100,000 visitors annually.[46]

A 2005 survey at Cley and five other North Norfolk coastal sites found that 39 per cent of visitors gave birdwatching as the main purpose of their visit. The 7.7 million day visitors and 5.5 million who made overnight stays in the area in 1999 are estimated to have spent £122 million, and created the equivalent of 2,325 full-time jobs. Cley Marshes, like Titchwell Marsh RSPB and Holkham NNR, attracts 100,000 or more visitors annually.[46][47]

Of the six sites, Cley and Titchwell have the highest proportion of pre-planned visits, and Cley, together with neighbouring Blakeney, had the highest per capita spend per visitor. The equivalent of 52 full-time jobs in the Cley area are estimated to result from the £2.45 million spent by the visiting public.[48]

The large number of tourists can have negative effects; wildlife may be disturbed, particularly species that breed in exposed areas, such as

ringed plovers, and plants can be trampled, which is a particular problem in sensitive habitats such as sand dunes and vegetated shingle.[49] Damage can be reduced by measures such as wardening the breeding colonies and using fences, boardwalks and signs to control access.[50] The access paths to the hides, other than the northernmost, are largely boardwalked,[30] and an extensive programme of fence replacement and improvements to the control of water levels on the reserve took place in 2010–2011.[31]

Threats

The shingle ridge is moving southwards through the marshes.

The reserve shelters behind a ridge of shingle that runs west from Weybourne along the Norfolk coast, before becoming a spit extending into the sea at Blakeney Point. Saltmarshes can develop behind the shingle, but the sea attacks the ridge and spit through tidal and storm action. The amount of shingle moved by a single storm can be "spectacular";[51] the spit has sometimes been breached, becoming an island for a time, and this may happen again.[4][52] The northernmost part of nearby Blakeney was lost to the sea in the early Middle Ages, probably due to a storm.[53]

The spit is moving towards the mainland at about 1 m per year,[54] and for the last two hundred years maps have been accurate enough for the encroachment of the sea to be quantified. Blakeney Chapel, just west of the reserve, was 400 m (440 yd) from the sea in 1817, but this had reduced to 195 m (215 yd) by the end of the twentieth century.[4] The landward movement of the shingle also means that the channel of the River Glaven becomes blocked increasingly often, leading to flooding of the reserve and Cley village.[55] The Environment Agency considered a number of remedial options to protect these vulnerable areas,[54] and a new route for the river to the south of its original line was completed in 2007 at a cost of about £1.5 million.[56]

The sea defences at Cley were badly breached in 1742, 1897, 1953 and 1996, with smaller incursions in 1993 and 1998.[7][13] The massive 1953 flood reached 8 km (4 mi) inland at Cley.[57] A 2 m (6 ft) storm surge in December 2013 flooded much of the English east coast,[58] and breached the shingle ridge at Cley, flooding the reserve and damaging or destroying the hides.[59] Restoration of the reserve was assisted by Natural England,[58] and the removal of salt was helped by natural freshwater springs.[59] As of 2015, the reserve was fully restored and functioning.[60]

Although the financial benefits from the recreational value of the reserve currently outweigh the costs of maintaining the sea defences,[13] managed retreat is likely to be the long-term solution to rising sea levels at Cley and along much of the rest of the North Norfolk coast,[54][61] and has already been implemented at other major sites including Titchwell Marsh.[62][63] The important reedbeds at Cley will inevitably be lost due to increased saltwater flow into the marshes. To compensate, the Environment Agency and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust have been working since 2010 to make a new wetland near Hilgay. The 60-hectare (150-acre) Hilgay Wetland Creation Project is converting former farmland into a variety of wetland habitats by using banks, ditches and a lake to manage water levels.[64] The Trust sees this as the first stage of a long-term plan to create a roughly 10,000-hectare (25,000-acre) Wissey Living Landscape.[65]

References

  1. ^ Robertson et al. (2005) pp. 9–10.
  2. ^ Norfolk Heritage Explorer; NHER Number: 6163
  3. ^ a b Robertson et al. (2005) pp. 20–22.
  4. ^ a b c Wright, John (1999). "The chapel on Blakeney Eye: some documentary evidence" (PDF). Glaven Historian. 2: 26–33. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  5. ^ Brooks (2011) p. 21.
  6. ^ a b c d e Bishop (1983) pp. 130–133.
  7. ^ a b Labrum (1993) pp. 113–114.
  8. ^ a b Pevsner & Wilson (2002) p. 435.
  9. ^ a b Hume, Joseph. "Port of Cley and Blakeney" in appendix to Tidal Harbours Commission (1846). Second report of the commissioners. London: W Clowes & Son. pp. 83a–84a.
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  11. ^ "£2.5m for Cley Marsh". Natural World: 8–9. Winter 2005.
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  13. ^ a b c d Turner et al. (2001) pp. 128–139.
  14. ^ Bishop (1983) pp. 40–41.
  15. ^ "Cley Marshes part of the family". Eastern Daily Press. Norwich: Archant Community Media Ltd. 3 February 2011. Archived from the original on 16 February 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
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  17. ^ "Protected bird nest closes Cley Marshes path days after it was unveiled by David Attenborough". Eastern Daily Press. Norwich: Archant Community Media Ltd. 18 June 2015. Archived from the original on 9 August 2015. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
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  28. ^ NWT (2012) Cley Marshes land purchase appeal leaflet.
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  35. ^ Newton (2010) p. 50.
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  38. ^ Hudson, Nigel and the Rarities Committee (2011). "Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 2010". British Birds. 104 (10): 557–629.
  39. ^ Hudson, Nigel and the Rarities Committee (2010). "Report on rare birds in Great Britain in 2009". British Birds. 103 (10): 562–638.
  40. ^ "Water voles in the North Pennines" (PDF). North Pennines AONB Partnership. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
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  43. ^ a b Net Gain (2011) 574–586.
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  56. ^ "Case Study Report 2 Blakeney Freshes River Glaven Realignment and Cley to Salthouse Drainage Improvements" (PDF). Coastal Schemes with Multiple Funders and Objectives FD2635. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Environment Agency, Maslem Environmental. Retrieved 4 December 2011
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Cited texts

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