Waldringfield’s Mystery Cuttings

South of the sailing club along the seawall leading towards Hemley is series of regular cuttings in the saltmarsh extending for about 350m. They do not seem interesting until one wonders why there are no similar cuttings on the East Coast, and what they were for.

The channels to the south vary from 5m wide to less than 2m: the longest is about 80m. What were they for? A review of Ordnance Survey maps shows that the cuttings were not there in 1904 but visible in 1925.

• Mud digging for the Cement Works? – The total volume of mud that has been removed from the cuttings is around 1,000 to 2,000 cubic metres, 500 to 1,000 tons. However, the total mud dug for the cement works was much greater, around 112,000 tons. There are no similar cuttings on the Medway, the centre of cement production. The cement works closed in 1907 so a connection with cement is improbable.
• Oyster or shellfish beds? – There are no similar cuttings on the East Coast, some patterned oyster bed cuttings exist on the West side of West Mersea and there are oyster beds near Nacton on the River Orwell, but neither is like these. Other Oyster bed cuttings on the Ore bear a small resemblance but are not the same. Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service gave the opinion that: “Oyster pits seem rather unlikely, but the layout suggests a trap of some kind.  They could be drainage related as the remains of a drain was found in the creek north of the cuttings.”

The more irregular cuttings to the north are different to those further south and were cut sometime between 1928 and 1969 , there was some evidence of them in 1945 with a probable growth by 1955, the shapes vary over time. Boat storage has been suggested but this would not be a good idea in a tidal estuary: A more likely explanation would be removal of material for reinforcing seawalls (this is easily withing living memory so somebody should know). The nearby reservoir had not been constructed by this point so seems unrelated.

So, it is still not certain why either of these sets of cuttings were made.

The notes section shows contour maps of the cuttings for comparison.