Lyme Regis Beach: Made in France

As reported recently in the Guardian, the beach at Lyme Regis is being rebuilt. This is the last stage of work to prevent parts of the town slipping down the hill and into the sea.

Digger

Not only are there diggers along the entire beach, but up the hillside behind.

Digger

These photos show low tide on Wednesday, when shingle from the shore line was being moved up the beach.

Truck

This morning we headed over there for breakfast to see the sand and shingle being landed. High tide was at 1109 but at 9.00 the first load had been transfered from the large ship moored in the bay onto one of the two smaller ships being used to land the materials on the beach.

The transfer

You can see, in the centre of the picture above, a small ship alongside the larger ship, being loaded.

The first load brought in was sand from France.

Sand landing

The ships were brought right into the beach, with the bow held aground by constant propultion.

Sand tipping

By the time the first ship had unloaded, a the second ship had loaded and was ready to nose into the beach.

Ships passing

This time the load was Isle of Wight shingle.

Shingle

The end of the shingle banks, and the low tide line, are marked by a traffic cone on a very long pole…

About Simon Wood

Lecturer in medical education, lapsed mathematician, Doctor Who fan and garden railway builder. See simonwood.info for more...

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