Looking towards Ladram Bay, Devon, from the north-east: the gaps both in the foreground and the background were framed by natural arches, within living memory; the background one was the famous Ladram Arch.
On Friday, my wife and I were planning to revisit Beer, but a last-minute change in itinerary (the X53 bus had a mishap) led to us walking for the first time the section of the South West Coast Path between Sidmouth and Budleigh via Ladram Bay. It's moderately strenous in places - whatever direction you walk it, there's a stiff ascent to the Peak Hill / High Peak section - but we highly recommend it.
A glance through Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art found an interesting account of the location from Volume 25, 1893:
Landslip At Sidmouth.Nothing much changes, in some respects; such slips go with the geological territory and still regularly happen - see Sidmouth: a harbour never built. However, a couple of details caught my interest. One is the irony that a few yards from where the temperance meeting gathered - Ladram Bay at the time was backed by orchards and had little beyond Ladram Cottage, some limekilns and a coastguard lookout - there's now a large licensed bar/restaurant. The other is that "the natural arch, so well known in the neighbourhood" no longer exists.
"Considerable excitement was caused at Sidmouth about seven o'clock on Thursday evening [June 8th, 1893] by a large quantity of the cliff at High Peak giving way. The spot in question is about a mile and a half from Sidmouth Esplanade and half a mile from Ladrum Bay, at which place the Sidmouth branch of the Church of England Temperance Society were holding an open-air meeting over the natural arch, so well known in the neighbourhood. There were about 100 persons at the meeting. There was a terrific rumbling, resembling an express train at full speed, followed by a loud crash, which greatly startled all present. The noise of the falling continued for some ten minutes, and the sea for quite two miles out was covered with thick red sandstone. Owing to Peakhill intervening, the noise of the fall was not very distinctly heard at Sidmouth, but the red mist on the sea attracted the attention of many, and much anxiety prevailed as to the safety of the people who had gone to Ladrum."—Western Morning News, June 10,1893.
"This landslip, if it can be so called, occurred in Picket Rock Cove, that is, the first sweep of the beach beyond Picket Rock and the projecting foot of High Peak Hill. The distance of the spot from Sidmouth is one mile and a half, the mile being on the flat sand at low water, and the half mile over slippery rocks covered with sea-weed. It was also observed by Mr. Parsons, of Sidmouth. The sea being very calm, he took his boys, accompanied by a sailor or two, in a row-boat along the coast to the west. They had attained to about a mile and a half, and were off the point of High Peak Hill, but near the shore. Suddenly they were startled at hearing a loud roaring noise, and on looking round they saw large masses of earth, marl, and the usual soft red sand-rock falling from the perpendicular face of the cliff. It was out from the top of the cliff, so that none of the field above came down. The cliff at this place may be from 150 to 200 feet high. The quantity is described as a great heap. What interests me most is this, that it is at or near the same place where there was a similar fall-down in 1875, when there was a talus as big as a house. I passed it and examined it in my walks at low-water once or twice, but detected nothing. Afterwards, however, when the rising waves had washed away some of the softer portions, Mr. H. Lavis, a visitor here, walking that way, detected and extracted what turned out to be some of the head plates of an unknown batrachian. He brought them to me, and I made a sketch of them. Mr. Lavis took them to London ; they were recognized as the bones of an unknown species of Labyrinthodon, and the specimen was named the Labyrinthodon Lavisi. It is described in Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxii. pi. xix. (P. 0. Hutchinson.)"
The arch's location is described in Peter Orlando Hutchinson's 1843 The Geology of Sidmouth and of South-eastern Devon; marked by a flagstaff, it was at the end of the promontory by the coastguard cottage at the Sidmouth end of Ladram Bay (see page 63 onward - the account also mentions the ongoing erosive process, including the destruction of Chit Rock, Sidmouth, in a storm in November 1824). There are some striking images of the location at Exmouth to Milford on Sea, 1800-2000, Doreen Smith's excellent photo site documenting the World Heritage Site coastline through historical images. The before-and-after pair of postcards, however - 1890s / c. 1928 - look a trifle unreliable as documentation of the process. The newer image appears to be merely retouched to remove the arch, as the rest of the shot is, suspiciously, identical to the older. It gives a time frame, though, and I pinpointed the actual time of collapse via The Times, which reported:
Collapse of Ladram Bay ArchSee the modern Google Maps image below: the Ladram Arch bridged the gap between the promontory (centre) and the offshore stack to its right.
The natural arch at Ladram Bay, situated near Sidmouth and Exmouth, has been damaged by the coast erosion which is taking place between these two watering places. The central portion of the arch fell into the sea early yesterday morning. Ladram Arch has long been a picturesque feature of this part of the South Devon coast.
- The Times, Thursday, Oct 29, 1925
View Larger Map
- RG
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