New for August 2004
This pair of villages on the North Devon coast is popular with tourists who enjoy the picturesque setting, but are also perhaps drawn by the history of the village.
The North Devon coast is famous for the cliffs at COUNTISBURY: the highest in England (and shrouded in cloud when I visited which at least meant that you could make out the height of the cloud base...) These can be found to the East of the villages.
We parked at Lynton. This town owes its existence to the growth of tourism in Victorian times. There are large hotels, parades of shops and viewpoints. Sir George Newnes also added a highlight of our day: the Victorian cliff railway, which is operated by water pressure and was enjoyable. A return journey cost us £2.75 per adult, £1.75 for a child, and 50p for a buggy... This joins the 2 resorts and is a useful alternative to a long steep climb down the cliffs.
Want details on the LYNMOUTH FLOOD OF 1952 ? There are some excellent Lynmouth flood sites which have a lot of detail. I have a copy of Delderfield's classic account of the flood from a local 2nd hand bookshop.
I use the flood as a case study with Year 10 GCSE and also with my AS students. In 2002, to coincide with the 50th anniversary, ITV broadcast a 30" documentary: National Disasters: The Flood of 52, which had a reconstruction of events and interviews with survivors. This now forms a useful resource to go along with the others.
Here are some ideas:
Set up a worksheet or word document with a series of boxes to store different factors:
The students can then watch sections of the video and pick up details like the following (and put them into the correct area of the sheet..) or do a CATEGORISING activity.
It has been very wet in the days leading up to the 15th of August.
4 months worth of rain had fallen in the first 2 weeks of August.
The streams on Exmoor were already full to overflowing
A storm sat over Exmoor on the evening of the flood and dropped 11 inches of rain in 24 hours.
The streams dropped over 800m in just 10 miles.
Streams flowed down narrow steep sided valleys, crossed by over 30 small stone bridges with limited span.
The normal population of only 450 people had been added to by around 700 holidaymakers.
The Lyndale Hotel was built at the confluence of the East and West Lyn rivers.
There was no warning system in place.
Houses had been built right up to the river.
Signs such as the discolouration of the water were ignored.
Bridges created 'debris dams' as they were blocked by trees and boulders. When they burst they released a shock wave of water which surged down into the village.
If you're in the area of Lynmouth it's well worth visiting. On the slopes of the West and East Lyn rivers above the village you can still see the scars of landslips which occurred at the time. I went on an undergraduate fieldtrip - the day was also my first experience of the wonders of Gore-Tex in keeping you dry. There's an exhibition of material relating to the flood at the Flood Memorial Hall, on the Esplanade in Lynmouth. It's a free exhibit with lots of personal accounts, photos etc. Also material on the recent theory that it may have been the result of cloud-seeding experiments by the military. This was the subject of a Radio 4 programme which I managed to tape and also have as a resource. This 'conspiracy theory' has apparently surfaced several times since the actual floods.
Just up from 'The Rising Sun' inn is the Lynmouth Flood MEMORIAL HALL. This has a good model which shows the village pre-flood, along with images of the buildings which were destroyed and how to identify their sites. There are also a large number of plaques located at various places around the village.
It's also worth pausing at the National Trust 'Watersmeet' (as it is sited where the Hoaroak water and East Lyn river meet) tea rooms and walking down the river to the villages, perhaps following the excellent THEMATIC TRAIL I bought in a local shop. It was cheaper than the Jack Wolfskin fleece I really wanted... It's called 'Lyn in Flood' and was written by Peter Keene and Derek Elsom from 'Oxford Polytechnic'. There are a series of excellent walks which take in the scars of the landslides which occurred on the night of the floods and are still visible in places.
Head off to Richard Allaway's excellent new mini-site: http://www.geographyalltheway.com/lynmouth_boscastle
or Rob Chambers' excellent post on his blog:
http://geobytesgcse.blogspot.com/2006/12/flooding-in-medc-2004-boscastle-flood.html
Those of you with the BOADWORKS Geography resource will find a series of useful activities for this particular topic, complete with FLASH interactivity.
You could also try my little FLASH activity (thanks to Content Generator)