I visited Brean Down again last week to do some final testing of the Channel Weather Symmetry app.
Cycling from Weston-super-Mud to the Down is one life’s more frustrating activities thanks to the river Axe making a nuisance of itself and getting in the way. I started off heading towards the Down, passing by almost within smelling distance, then for a few agonising miles pedalled away from it in the exact opposite direction, before gradually turning around, and suddenly I’d arrived.
It’s been a while since I last visited and I’d forgotten how incredibly beautiful this place can be. Next up - Rhossili!
A couple of stills from Herbert Ponting’s ‘The Great White Silence’ (BFI restoration)
"The ubiquity of GPS (global positioning satellite) and other tracking technologies suggests that “being lost” may itself be an experience that is being lost"
— Teri Rueb
Until May 13th at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff you can see this exhibiton of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s 1910-13 British Antarctic Expedition. His boat the Terra Nova left from and returned to Cardiff, and amongst the objects on show are a Welsh flag flown on the ship, Herbert Ponting’s photographs and film footage, and many specimens including rock samples collected by Scott on his way back from the pole and later discovered with their frozen bodies. The expedition laid the foundations of modern Antarctic science.
Today is a hundred years to the day since Rhossili-born Edgar Evans died in the Antarctic on Scott’s fateful expedition
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Marconi’s first broadcast across the Bristol Channel, generated using a Morse Code Translator
Sheep Dogs
Another fantastic and unfortunate symmetry between Brean Down and Rhossili is the number of animals lost over the cliffs each year. At Brean the problem is dogs chasing rabbits. The nimble rabbits scamper to the edge of the cliff and into their hiding places, while the dogs’ momentum carries them over to their deaths. At Rhossili the problem is sheep trying to stay out of the way of humans. The sheer volume of visitors during the summer forces the sheep closer and closer to the cliff edge, until they lose their footing and plummet into the void.
The Things People Lose When Their Ship Is Wrecked
Helvetia – from Norway, had sailed all the way from Campbelton New Brunswick with 500 tonnes of timber cargo … Samuel – on her way to Santos carrying hundreds of tonnes of coal … Tocopilla – bound for Bolivia with 715 tonnes of copper ore … Irish Miners – copper ore … the Eliza Jane of Dungarvan … Sisters, bound for St Ives … Grace, carrying a cargo of oats from Brigwater to Liverpool … City of Bristol - 15 bullocks, 280 pigs in pens on deck, 370 barrels of oats, 113 barrrels of barley, two tierces of lard and 120 flitches of bacon … Liverpool Packet carrying coal from Newport to Penzance … Menai – large quantities of oats washed up at Llangennith … The ‘dollar ship’, almost a legend until a spring tide revealed its hoard …
Stuck On The Worm
There are hundreds of different ways of getting into trouble on and around the Worms Head in Rhossili. Here’s a small selection of the many entries which grace the diary page of the National Coastwatch website page for Worm’s Head:
- 7th December 2 people rescued from Worms Head
- 30th April a member of the public reported that a man was stuck half way up the cliff and was shouting for help
- 3rd September vessel sailing into danger
- 1st May two canoeists rescued from the worm
- 20th April hoax mayday
- 15th March injured surfer
- 21st May two people were seen heading out on the south east side of the Worm ten minutes before the crossing was due to flood. The loud hailer was used to attract their attention and the walkers returned safely to the mainland
- 19th March two people were seen on the outer head near the time the crossing was due to flood
- 15th April a container of hazardous chemicals washed up ashore
"Berrow - the last place on earth I would go, and Brean can be found beyond that"
— Anonymous
