The Bawdsey Sea-mark and Churches

The Sea Mark

The Sledway was the safe route from deep water east of the Shipwash to Orwell and Woodbridge Havens, avoiding shoals. It was marked, until 1934, by a brick sea-mark on the Bawdsey Cliff when the sea-mark was demolished due to erosion. The bricks were used in local housebuilding¹See Sir Cuthbert’s Fight with the Sea – RDA’s Deben Spring 2013 which says it was demolished in 1934 and the bricks used to build houses in East Lane.. The photograph dates to the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, as it appears some way from the cliff edge.

There are few visible landmarks along the coast and, as well as marking the Sledway, the beacon would have provided a cross-fix with Naze Tower (49m). The brick beacon is around 100′ (30m) high off the ground²For beacon visibility range add about 20m for cliff height. so would have been equal in visibility to the Tower. Was the triangular top meant to signify starboard? There are several other features in the area which have been used as nautical landmarks: Bawdsey Cliff, Butley Church, Boyton Wood, Boyton Mill and Alderton Rectory (Dr Frank’s House).

Sir James Thornhill, visiting Kings Fleet, mentions a sea-mark at Bawdsey in 1711, the Church then had a spire.

Mav 30th. … whence yon see Bargy (Bawdsey) whose Tower is tall and a sea mark, there is a ferry.

1711 diary of Sir James Thornhill

The sea-mark does not appear on the late eighteenth-century Burns, Chandler or Heather charts, which use only Bawdsey and Alderton Churches as marks: perhaps Thornhill saw the wooden beacon as on the 1683 chart which shows an un-named Bawdsey beacon: this was probably a wooden beacon, with a brazier that could be lit, and not brick. That chart gives clearing lines for the Sledway. There is a record of the construction cost being £346 before 1802 (presumably Spence’s survey)³Great Britain Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Condition of Lights Beacons Buoys and, Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire Into the Condition and Management of Lights, Buoys and Beacons: Together with a Letter from Rear-Admiral W.A.B. Hamilton, Chairman of the Commission, and Appendix and Index (H.M. Stationery Office, 1861)..

Spence’s 1804 chart and the 1845 Deben Survey show the sea-mark⁴ the sea-mark is not mentioned in the somewhat idiosyncratic 1844 Coaster’s Guide. The sketch on the 1804 chart omits the distinctive triangular top so this may have been incorporated on the rebuild. Note the churches.

The seamark intrigued Edward Fitzgerald in the 1870s who described it as being all white, not the best colour scheme for visibility. The 1869 drawing shows no stripes but by 1892 Frank Cowper reported that:

“Bawdsey Cliff, with its triangular sea mark painted in red and white rings, which is a mark for the sledway outside, is very conspicuous; beyond the beacon, fading away in dots in the dim distance, are a string of martello towers, …”

So, a mark of some sort existed in 1711 and was probably a brick structure by 1804: it was rebuilt in 1831 and demolished in 1934. Nowadays, ships have the Deep Water Channel so neither the Sledway nor a seamark are required.

Older Marks

There have been marks on the cliffs since at least 1552⁵W.G.Arnott, W G. Suffolk Estuary : The Story of the River Deben. N. Adlard, , 2D Impression, 1950. – The first sea mark on Bawdsey Cliff was in existence as far back as 1552 when it was referred to in an Admiralty suit. .

The 1538 chart at the British Library⁶A Coloured Chart of the Coast of Suffolk, from Orwell Haven to Gorlston, near Yarmouth shows marks or beacons on the cliffs on either side of the Deben. Whilst the Deben had been important in earlier centuries as Goseford Haven, by this time it was in decline. Arnott cites tall pylons visible twenty miles out to sea and provides a sketch of them. The 1683 chart shows ‘Felsto Becon’, on the Felixstowe cliff, and an un-named Bawdsey beacon: these are probably the same pair mentioned above and must have been substantial wooden structures.

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• 1
  See Sir Cuthbert’s Fight with the Sea – RDA’s Deben Spring 2013 which says it was demolished in 1934 and the bricks used to build houses in East Lane.
• 2
  For beacon visibility range add about 20m for cliff height.
• 3
  Great Britain Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Condition of Lights Beacons Buoys and, Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire Into the Condition and Management of Lights, Buoys and Beacons: Together with a Letter from Rear-Admiral W.A.B. Hamilton, Chairman of the Commission, and Appendix and Index (H.M. Stationery Office, 1861).
• 4
  the sea-mark is not mentioned in the somewhat idiosyncratic 1844 Coaster’s Guide
• 5
  W.G.Arnott, W G. Suffolk Estuary : The Story of the River Deben. N. Adlard, , 2D Impression, 1950. – The first sea mark on Bawdsey Cliff was in existence as far back as 1552 when it was referred to in an Admiralty suit.
• 6
  A Coloured Chart of the Coast of Suffolk, from Orwell Haven to Gorlston, near Yarmouth