Monday, August 29, 2011

The Street, Whitstable

Yesterday I went for a walk along the sea wall at Whitstable. We usually go west but this time tried east, turning round when we reached what is called "The Street" (see iPhone photo above).

It is a nearly straight line of shingle heading almost directly out to sea, as can be seen in this Google Earth picture:
It is such a regular structure that there are some that say it's man-made, maybe created to help harvest the oyster beds as has been done since Roman times.

But according to Wikipedia it is entirely natural shingle built upon underlying clay. Some more pics here at geography.org.uk.

As you might expect such a clear navigational hazard is most definitely on the charts:

2 comments:

Baydog said...

There is nothing, absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as creating a structure to help harvest the oyster beds. Natural Schmatural.

JP said...

Whitstable is deservedly famous for its oysters and there were literally piles of their shells. It reminded us of Alice and the Walrus and Carpenter:

The sun was shining on the sea
...
O Oysters come and walk with us
...
They'd eaten every one

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