THE HISTORY OF SLAPTON SANDS We should not be too surprised or set back by the changes to Slapton Sands. In geological terms they are minimal! Think of real changes: this whole area was once covered by shallow seas, up to 400 Ma. Again between 3 and 12 Ma there were inundations that covered us up here where we find ourselves. What do a few incursions by the sea into the Ley measure up to besides those? Even as recently as 1947 the sea breached the Line and invaded the fresh water lake. Taken against the age of the rocks that surround the beaches we are used to describing as shingle barriers – the 9 km from Start Point to Strete Gate, including Beesands – which come from the Devonian period, up to 400 Ma, our beach here is an infant, with its cousin Chesil Bank or Beach to the north, poetically described by C R Morey in 1947 as mirror images of each other. So what name shall we use now? Slapton Sands has long been a misnomer – precious little sand has been visible among the pebbles of the shingle barrier. Sand bank would be more suitable. But it has been a sand beach formerly, when the title was perhaps given. Now the various shelves have been smoothed out and the beach itself covered with coarse sand, with only a few pebbles remaining. A few weeks ago we could see as predominant rock type, pebbles of a flint type, chert, quartzite, blue slate and water-polished small pebbles of New Red Sandstone, with the occasional small granite piece and small black jet-like stones, maybe basalt. It is interesting to speculate on where these originated, it was not near here. The nearest land sites are Haldon Hill and Beer, where the chert is embedded in chalk. But about 70 km out on the seabed is the most likely source for the chert. Quartz is present as veins in the surrounding slates and schists, and the new red sandstone from the underlying rocks of the soil that makes this outlier from Torbay such fertile ground. How do or did the pebbles get here? Carried on the huge circular current offshore that moves with the tides. In 1986 the depth of shingle was calculated (D Mottershead) at 11 metres, it is based on marine muds. So you can see how much force was needed in easterly and north-easterly winds and high tides for wind and waves to shift it. But it came back after 1947 and we can be reasonably sure it will do so again. The sand shifts each winter on all beaches. The depth above sea level (OD) in the Slapton Sands car park is 6 metres. But measurement has shown that sea level is rising steadily, even if slightly, and this is an important fact to take into account. The shingle barrier has been calculated by various geologists to have been in place by 3000 years ago. A layer of peat built up over 1100 years on the landward side, composed of residue from poorly drained ground above. Sediments formed over the peat within the past 1800 years. The Gara river and two small streams fed in fresh water and we had the Ley. (Earlier, marshland had extended up to near Stokenham.) The road, or The Line as it was probably named when the Turnpike was created in 1856, was originally a walkway across the sand ridge, for at least a thousand years. The first artificial road surface was based on faggots or reeds – probably reeds here – and metalled after 1920, at first with dry-bound macadam, later bitumen. The Romans first used broken up stone, and the stones and fine material were laid on the faggots to make a mattress on which to spread the load over the sand. The Widdecombe Estate owned the land, and there was a Toll House where the public highway ended at Stokenham, another at Strete Gate. Some time in the 19C a tunnel was built under the road at Torcross and its outlet, which is still open, protected by a grill, is at the top of the beach below a gun emplacement. The County Council took over maintenance of the road in 1890. It became an A road in the 20s or 30s. The extensive damage, although only to a relatively short section of road, is interesting in that it reveals the various layers beneath the surface. These look to be composed of:
It would be interesting to know whether the peat and sandstone layers were placed there or are natural deposits. The American troops stationed in the requisitioned area between 1943 and 1944 did not carry out any road work on The Line, although they widened various narrow lanes in the requisitioned area. After they left, Mr Geoff Smaridge, born in Devonport and resident during his childhood in Salcombe, came from Exeter to work as resident engineer for the County supervising the repair work on the roads. Deputy County Surveyor Roberts worked for the Ministry of Transport; the County Surveyor was Andrew Warren. Mr Smaridge and his team found barbed wire along the whole beach, and all the houses at Torcross booby trapped (this had been done as part of the exercises). They found the whole area, from Frogmore over to The Mounts and thence to the Dartmouth road and down to Strete, a scene of desolation, dramatically changed from the neighbouring land still fully cultivated. Hedges had grown almost across the lanes, which were much damaged by the American vehicles. The only live domestic creatures were cats! The exercises had included dive bombing, and the bridge – the old walled causeway – was destroyed and the two leys joined. Mr Smaridge found the foundations and planned the widened bridge which was then constructed. The building was carried out by Italian prisoners of war, housed at Brixton and brought over every day; they worked very hard. They also worked winning dolerite, blue elvan, from Torr Quarry and Slade Quarry at Roke, Loddiswell (owned by W.G. Northcott), and it seems fairly certain that these were the source of the dolerite hardcore used on The Line. After the Italians were repatriated, German p.o.w.s took over. The Royal Navy had requisitioned the land and cleared the mines which reverted to the Herbert Whitley Estate, for which Mr Bowen was the agent. There is a local tradition that the hardcore for The Line came from Goldswell Quarry in the woods leading from Strete Gate up the Gara Valley on the Toll estate. That, I think, is not dolerite, although in his history of Slapton, A Fortunate Place, Robin Stands mentions Buckland and Scarswell quarries with igneous rock north of Slapton village, as having provided road stone. Perhaps Goldswell Quarries were used when the turnpike road was constructed across the Sands. The Line was realigned and straightened, there had been a bend in it near the hotel, destroyed during the American 'occupation'; and the resurfacing was completed in 1944. Anne Born |