Abandoned seaside village started crumbling into sea when they removed beach

A once-bustling seaside village on the South Devon coast now stands as a chilling testament to the consequences of disturbing nature's equilibrium. Nestled in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty near Start Bay, the village began to crumble into the sea after vast amounts of sand and shingle, which had safeguarded it for centuries, were removed in the late 19th century.

Hallsands was once a thriving fishingcommunity. By the 1890s, it boasted 37 houses and a population of 159, with the majority of residents making their living through fishing. The village sat atop a rocky ledge, shielded by natural barriers of sand and shingle. However, this protective barrier was dramatically altered in 1897 when the Admiralty decided to expand the Royal Navy dockyard at Keyham, Plymouth.

Sir John Jackson, the contractor, was given permission to extract sand and shingle from the seabed off Hallsands. Without the knowledge of the villagers, Jackson began dredging the coast, removing an average of 1,600 tons of material per day. This relentless extraction caused the sea to creep closer to the village, destabilising the shore and setting the stage for disaster.

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As thebeach continued to erode, concerns from the villagers and local officials grew. In 1900, a petition was raised about the damage to houses, as the high tide now reached within a meter of the village, compared to the 70-80 feet it had previously been.

Despite these warnings, dredging carried on until 1902, with a staggering 650,000 tons of shingle removed. By then, the damage was irreversible, reports the Express.

The final nail in the coffin came in January 1917 when a violent storm, coupled with a high tide, decimated most of the village. The sea walls, erected to safeguard the remaining homes, held temporarily, but the next high tide broke through, wiping out what was left.

Incredibly, all 79 villagers survived, but their homes and way of life were gone. A subsequent inquiry confirmed that the dredging had led to Hallsands' downfall, but compensation for the villagers was slow and inadequate. Many families were forced to move, and the government only offered a fraction of what was needed to rebuild.

Today, Hallsands is internationally recognised within the Coastal Engineering community as a tragic example of the consequences of coastal dredging. A viewing platform now overlooks the site, allowing visitors to see the remnants of the village that once was.

In 2006 the tragic story of Hallsands was turned in to an opera called ‘Whirlwind’ commissioned by the highly lauded opera company Streetwise Opera, and written by Will Todd one of the country’s leading young opera composers and Ben Duwell.