Borlase 1753–4, 57

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the Cornish antiquary and natural scientist William Borlase visited the Isles of Scilly and recorded the history, archaeology and the flora and fauna of these beautiful islands. While his works are a useful record of life there at the time, the most striking feature of his work is the sharpness with which he understood what we would now call the impact of climate change. Submerged field boundaries, cairns and dwellings on the shallow sand-flats between the northernmost islands demonstrated that the seas had risen considerably; even in the 1750s, he was witnessing the immediate action of the sea, gorging itself on the soft coastline of the islands, a process that is continuing, and perhaps accelerating, today.

Two hundred and fifty years later, Peter Murphy’s book takes the modern reader on a similar voyage of discovery. His work lays out the prehistory and history of the coast from the arrival of the first human settlers around 700,000 years ago through the successive waves of attempted settlement in the face of advancing and retreating ice sheets. After the last glaciation the islands of Britain assumed broadly their current form, with the link to the continent being severed. This was at the expense of the magnificently named ‘Doggerland’ that now lies beneath the North Sea and which is today being uncovered using modern surveying techniques and finds retrieved from gravel extraction from the sea bed.

This book then examines, in a broadly thematic structure, how the lives of the English and the coastline became intertwined once people had settled in England. Murphy begins by studying how the coast functioned economically, providing raw materials and foodstuffs as well as serving as a conduit for luxury goods. His fourth chapter examines the central role of the coastline in the defence of our island nation, spanning Iron Age forts to Cold War era radar sites and missile-testing grounds. Chapter 5, entitled ‘Bodies and souls’, talks about the human dimension of the coast, from slavery, prehistoric burials and Christian hermitages to the joyous excesses of the seaside. This book does not have the time to repudiate the charge that England’s seaside heritage is scruffy, old-fashioned and dull. In fact, England possesses an unrivalled collection of historic seaside towns that evolved from the early eighteenth century onwards, setting a pattern for holidaymaking that the world was to follow.

The final chapter in the book has the portentous title of ‘What next?’. Murphy provides an accessible, if not always palatable, analysis of where climate science sees the English coast in the future and the responses that the Government and other bodies have put in place to address the issue. Through the development of Shoreline Management Plans, updated every decade – strategies for protecting our coast and its heritage – the reality is that, for parts of the English coastline, the only policy will be to accept change and deal with its consequences. The author, who signs his work as a resident of low-lying Southsea, does not reflect on his situation, though nearby Portsmouth has been recognized as being particularly vulnerable to any rise in sea level.

Murphy’s book is an ambitious survey of the past and future of England’s coastline, which suffers only because of its ambition. As the author admits in his Foreword, he cannot explore each topic in the depth he would wish, but he succeeds in introducing the topic cogently and sets the scene for discussing the issues we face today. Ten years ago there was another introductory survey specifically focused on the historic coast and the surviving heritage of its exploitation, and Alison Gale’s book neatly complements Murphy’s excellent, broad, informative and thought-provoking study.

Borlase, W 1753–4. ‘An Account of the great Alterations which the Islands of Sylley have undergone since the Time of the Antients …’, Phil Trans Roy Soc London, B, 48, 55–69