Dunwich
Dunwich | ||
---|---|---|
Shire county | ||
Region | ||
Country | England | |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom | |
Post town | SAXMUNDHAM | |
Postcode district | IP17 | |
Dialling code | 01728 | |
Police | Suffolk | |
Fire | Suffolk | |
Ambulance | East of England | |
UK Parliament | ||
Dunwich ( coast.
In the
The population of the civil parish at the 2001 census was 84,[2] which increased to 183 according to the 2011 Census,[3] though the area used by the Office of National Statistics for 2011 also includes part of the civil parish of Westleton. There is no parish council; instead there is a parish meeting.[4]
History
Since the 15th century, Dunwich has frequently been identified with
The Domesday Book of 1086 describes it as possessing three churches.[8] At that time it had an estimated population of 3,000.[9]
On 1 January 1286, a storm surge reached the east edge of the town and destroyed buildings in it.[10] Before that, most recorded damage to Dunwich was loss of land and damage to the harbour.[11]
This was followed by two further surges the next year, the
Most of the buildings that were present in the 13th century have disappeared, including all eight churches, and Dunwich is now a small coastal village. The remains of a 13th-century
Characterizing the fate of the town as the loss of "a busy port to ... 14th century storms that swept whole parishes into the sea"[16] is inaccurate. It appears[17] that the port developed as a sheltered harbour where the Dunwich River entered the North Sea. Coastal processes including storms caused the river to shift its exit 2.5 miles (4 km) north to Walberswick, at the River Blyth. The town of Dunwich lost its raison d'etre and was largely abandoned. Sea defences were not maintained and coastal erosion progressively invaded the town.
As a legacy of its previous significance, the
By the mid-19th century, the population had dwindled to 237 inhabitants and Dunwich was described in 1844 as a "decayed and disfranchised borough".[19] A new church, St James, was built in 1832 after the abandonment of the last of the old churches, All Saints', which had been without a rector since 1755. All Saints' Church fell into the sea between 1904 and 1919, the last major portion of the tower succumbing on 12 November 1919.[20] In 2005 historian Stuart Bacon stated that recent low tides had shown that shipbuilding had previously occurred in the town.[21]
Marine archaeology
The Dunwich 2008 project funded by
In June 2011, at the invitation of Prof David Sear and the Dunwich Town Trust the Anglo-Saxon and medieval archaeology of Dunwich was the subject of an episode of archaeological television programme Time Team.[25]
Further work to explore new sites using DIDSON and diver surveys and a campaign of land-based archaeology is scheduled for 2013–15 funded by the "Touching the Tide" Heritage Lottery Fund Landscape Partnership Scheme. This work hopes to confirm the date of the town ditches and roads and explore the record of environmental change in the marsh sediments. Altogether this work has identified the ruins of St Peter's and St Nicholas's churches, a chapel most probably St Katherine's, and ruins associated with Blackfriars friary and the town hall. The location of the Knight's Templar Church and All Saints' Church are known from the digital mapping but remain buried beneath an inner sandbank. The early town is buried under between 1 and 3 metres (9.8 ft) of sand to the east of the ruins found by Bacon and these later surveys.[26] As a result, it was found that Dunwich had been a substantial port in Saxon times.[27]
Churches and other notable structures
- Greyfriars: Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. The priory was originally enclosed by a stone wall, much of which remains. The most impressive structures still standing are part of the refectoryand the 14th century gateway which would have been the main entrance to the monastic buildings.
- St Bartholomew's and St Michael's were both chapels of ease that had been built by the end of the 11th century.[28]
- St Leonard's: was a parish church that fell to the sea in the 14th century.[28]
- St Nicholas's: a parish church with a cruciform building to the south of the city. Lost to the sea soon after the Black Death.[28]
- St Martin's: a parish church built before 1175, it was lost to the sea between 1335 and 1408.[28]
- St Francis Chapel: beside the Dunwich River, was lost in the 16th century.
- St Katherine's Chapel: in the parish of St John, lost in the 16th century.
- St John the Baptist's: a cruciform parish church, dismantled in the 1540's.[28]
- Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, in 1562 the Temple was demolished. The foundations washed away during the reign of Charles I.
- St Peter's: a parish church similar in length to the church at nearby Blythburgh. It was stripped of anything of value as the cliff edge drew nearer. The east gable fell in 1688 and the rest of the building followed in 1697. The parish register survives and is now in the British Library.
- Blackfriars: Henry VIII. The last building fell to the sea in 1717.
- All Saints' Church: a parish church, last of Dunwich's ancient churches to be lost to the sea. It was abandoned in the 1750s after it was decided the parishioners could no longer afford the upkeep, although burials occurred in the churchyard until the 1820s. The cliff edge reached All Saints' in 1904 and the tower (at its west end) fell in 1922.[30] One of the tower buttresses was salvaged and now stands in the current Victorian-era St James' Church. One of the last remaining gravestones, in memory of John Brinkley Easey,[31] fell over the cliff in the early 1990s. A large block of masonry could still be seen at the water's edge at low tide in 1971. In 2022, only one gravestone (in memory of Jacob Forster who died in the late 18th century) remained, about 15 feet (4.6 m) from the cliff edge.
RAF Dunwich
During the
Bicycle ride
The annual Dunwich Dynamo through-the-night bicycle ride ends on Dunwich beach.
In popular culture and literature
The poet
The novel
In the novel "An Affair of Dishonour" by William De Morgan the Battle of Solebay is viewed from the shore by characters living at a manor house said to be remote "since the sea swallowed up the township of which it was a suburb".[35]
P. D. James's 1967 novel Unnatural Causes is partly set in Dunwich.[36]
The last track on Brian Eno's 1982 album Ambient 4: On Land is called Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960.[37]
Al Stewart's 1993 song "The Coldest Winter in Memory" includes the lines[38]
By the lost town of Dunwich
The shore was washed away
They say you hear the church bells still
As they toll beneath the waves
W. G. Sebald's 1995 novel The Rings of Saturn features a visit by the author to Dunwich in the course of his walking tour of Suffolk in 1992.[39]
British Progressive Rock band The Future Kings of England recorded a track called Dunwich for their 2007 album The Fate of Old Mother Orvis.[40]
Mark Fisher and Justin Barton's essay On Vanishing Land references the sunken city, the surrounding area and the Eno album from where it takes its name.[41]
See also
References
- ^ "Secret streets of Britain's 'Atlantis' are revealed". ScienceDaily. Archived from the original on 20 October 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ 2001 Census data Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
- ^ "Parish population 2011". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
- ^ "Dunwich Parish Meeting". Archived from the original on 28 February 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
- ^ Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book II, Ch.15 (accepitque sedem episcopatus in ciuitate Dommoc), who stipulates Felix's mission in relation to Sigeberht's rule.
- ^ Mee, Arthur. The King's England: Suffolk. pp. 124–128.
- ^ Richard Hoggett, (2010), The archaeology of the East Anglian conversion, pages 35–40. Boydell & Brewer
- ^ Gardner, Thomas (1754). An historical account of Dunwich, antiently a city, now a borough;: Blithburgh, formerly a town of note, now a village; Southwold, once a village, now a town-corporate; with remarks on some places contiguous thereto ... London: Printed for the author, and sold by him at Southwold, in Suffolk; and also by W. Owen, at Homer's Head near Temple-Bar. p. 6. Retrieved 18 November 2010. (Archived by Oxford University, 6 March 2009).
- ^ "Abandoned Communities...Dunwich". Abandonedcommunities.co.uk. Archived from the original on 17 November 2011. Retrieved 18 November 2011.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-00-728463-4.
- ^ "Dunwich – The search for Britain's Atlantis – Dunwich Coastal Change". Dunwich.org.uk. Archived from the original on 12 March 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ISBN 9781439112892.
- ^ "Dunwich underwater images show 'Britain's Atlantis'". BBC. 10 May 2013. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
- ^ "All Saints, Dunwich". SuffolkChurches.co.uk. Archived from the original on 28 July 2010. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
- ISBN 9780030468018.
- ^ Alexandra Harris, Guardian Review, 15.02.14
- ^ Dunwich museum displays
- ^ Philbin, J Holladay (1965). Parliamentary Representation 1832 – England and Wales. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- ^ Leader, R. (1844). William White History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk. Sheffield.
- ^ "St James, Dunwich". SuffolkChurches.co.uk. Archived from the original on 18 May 2011. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
- ^ "Low Tide Reveals Lost City Find". BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 10 October 2005. Archived from the original on 16 March 2006. Retrieved 9 March 2006.
- ^ "Underwater city could be revealed". BBC. 14 January 2008. Archived from the original on 14 February 2009. Retrieved 1 April 2011.
- ^ a b Dunwich museum plaques viewed 26 April 2012
- ^ "Dunwich Museum Research". Archived from the original on 20 June 2012. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
- ^ "Visualising Coastal Change at Dunwich". Time Team. Channel 4. Archived from the original on 12 February 2012. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
- ^ "Dunwich – The search for Britain's Atlantis – Publications". Dunwich.org.uk. Archived from the original on 15 October 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ Whiteley, David (21 February 2016). "Dunwich: The storms that destroyed 'lost town'". BBC News. Archived from the original on 21 February 2016. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ a b c d e Simon Knott (September 2009). "All Saints, Dunwich with an account of Dunwich's other lost churches". The Suffolk Churches Site. Archived from the original on 28 September 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
- ^ Item de denariis ... in iiijor puchis, Cxj li. xiiij s. vj d. qua' quos Robertus de Seffeld parsona ecclesie de Brampton se dicit posuisse ibidem ad custodiend': at Kew, The National Archives of the UK, E 358/18 rot. 3 dorse.
- ^ Comfort: The Lost City of Dunwich: Churches and Chapels, pp 99–102
- ISBN 9780091618308. Archivedfrom the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ "Chain Home Low Stations". 11 Group Stations of the Battle of Britain. RAF. 16 February 2005. Archived from the original on 6 February 2008. Retrieved 1 April 2011.
- ^ Jobson, Allan (1963) Dunwich Story pp 37-38 Flood & Son, Lowestoft
- ^ "Red Eve, by H. Rider Haggard". Archived from the original on 1 May 2023. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
- ^ William de Morgan, An Affair of Dishonour. Heinemann, London, 1910. Chapters 7 and 8.
- ^ James, P. D. (1967). "Unnatural Causes (excerpt)". Random House.
- ^ "An exploration of Brian Eno's 'Ambient 4 : On Land'". Landscape. Archived from the original on 30 November 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- ^ "The Coldest Winter in Memory". Al Stewart.com. Archived from the original on 29 May 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- ^ "Daydreams and death rays: an odyssey through Sebald's Suffolk". The Guardian. 26 June 2019. Archived from the original on 31 October 2022. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- ^ Woodger, Andrew (21 October 2010). "The Future Kings Of England aim to create atmospheres". BBC. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
- ^ "Retracing Mark Fisher and Justin Barton's Eerie Pilgrimage". Frieze. 23 July 2019. Archived from the original on 5 March 2021. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
Sources
- Durham, Andrew, Corbett, Sarah, Dunwich: A ghost story (page 5)
- ISBN 1-870567-85-4.
- Cooper, Ernest Read (1948). Memories of Bygone Dunwich. Southwold: F. Jenkins.
Further reading
- Carter, Jean; Bacon, Stuart (1975). Ancient Dunwich: Suffolk's Lost City. Segment.
- Comfort, Nicholas (1994). The Lost City of Dunwich. Terence Dalton. ISBN 0-86138-086-X.
- Cooper, Ernest Read (1928). A Suffolk Coast Garland. London: Heath Cranton Ltd.
- Pickard, Ormonde (1997). The little freemen of Dunwich. Dunwich Museum. ISBN 978-0953065509.
- "By the North Sea" and Tristram of Lyonesse, Algernon Charles Swinburne, in Major Poems and Selected Prose, Jerome McGann and Charles L. Sligh, eds. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004) 189–202, 206–312.
- Dunwich: A Tale of the Splendid City, James Bird, 1828.
- Bernard Cornwell, The Saxon Stories, Book 5 – The Burning Land (2009)
- An Historical Account of Dunwich, Antiently a City, Now a Borough Thomas Gardner, 1754
- The Annales, Or Generall Chronicle of England, Begun First by Maister Iohn Stow (page 61) (1615) Also Hathitrust
- The history and antiquities of the county of Suffolk, Volume II, page 229, by Alfred Inigo Suckling (1846)
External links
- Dunwich official website of the parish
- Dunwich, UK (New Scientist article)
- Reconstructed map of Dunwich town
- Coastal change at Dunwich