The mysterious
linear pond at the country park does
seem to be an anti-tank ditch, one of many disconcerting objects and shapes
scattered along the Bay.
There are other
questions prompted by the report on the historic environment of the Bay (Check out at http://www.aenvironment.co.uk/downloads/Druridge%20Bay%20Management%20Plan.pdf)
For example the map
above is from Armstrong 1769, part of the report and more of less the area of
the Bay for which Banks the mining company are hoping to develop as a new open
cast. At the southern end of the map is “Blakemoor Hall”, and, maybe “Cook esq”. I am not sure what the Hall
could be (if anyone knows I'd be grateful to hear), having always assumed the row of houses at Blakemoor farm, just as
you walk into the hide at Cresswell lagoon, are much more recent with no older
structures of any substance. However the farm outbuildings are older looking.
There is also a road that meanders out onto the beach from Cresswell, heading
north, suggesting more use and industry than you’d find there today, barring
the occasional sand extraction excursion at Hemscott.
For
such a walked, watched and loved stretch of coastline there remain many uncertainties.
From the Neolithic footprints in the peat beds and flooded forest stumps,
through the medieval at Chibburn to the WW2 pill boxes the Bay seems to capture
time. Whereas an egg timer’s sand marks the tumbling progress of the time it seems that at
Druridge Bay the sands clog and mire the passing years and hold all these
fragments in a jumble of half forgotten
histories.
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