Saturday 9 June 2012

The Greenwich Meridian has vanished


Which is bad news for Tunstall. As the coast erodes and falls into the sea, the point where the Meridian line leaves the UK and heads for the Arctic moves further south. A few years ago the marker was at the cliff top in Tunstall. We couldn’t find it at all today. 

It was tipping down with rain so we thought we might have missed it, but a bit of research shows that it did indeed fall off the cliff some years ago.

This was today’s rainy view from the top of the cliff:

There was a shiny new notice:

At the top of the path down to the beach:

With no Meridian marker as a guide, it was hard to know whether we were in the West or the East. In fact, the issue of whether or not the cliffs were about to crumble above us (when on the beach) or under our feet (when at the cliff top) was a more pressing concern than which side of the line we happened to be. And though wet, the beach with its retreating tide was lovely.

2 comments:

  1. Tunstall: I recall being taken there, with the family, as a child. My father had a new job as a rep and the car came with it. Tunstall was one of our favourite haunts and we rarely saw any other families as we played on the sands and in the surf. Great days. Thanks for the reminder, Penny. As for the Meridian; it's only an imaginary line imposed on the landscape to help men govern, so it's of little cosmic relevance.

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  2. it's still a wonderful beach. Worth checking tide times though.
    No cosmic relevance! But hey, the joys of standing with one foot in the west and one in the east, or balancing along the Meridian line at Greenwich (don't try that one at Tunstall, you'll totter off the cliff).

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