A HISTORY OF NORFOLK protected by the ranges of blown sand, known as Meals, which rise from a few feet to 50 or 60 feet in height, and present a mountainous out- line when seen from a distance, especially at sunset. They fringe the coast near Brancaster, the Burnhams, Holkham and Wells, and extend from Eccles and Waxham to Winterton, East Caister and Yarmouth. The blown sand is mainly derived from the expanses of sand which are uncovered on the foreshore at low tide, but in some places the accumulation is helped by the sand blown away from the cliffs. From the fact that the hills were planted with the marram grass they are known as the Marram Hills. MODERN CHANGES The outline of the coast is unbroken by any great bays, if we except a portion of the Wash. The one rocky cliff of Hunstanton, which rises to a height of 68 feet, has protected the north-west corner of Norfolk. Elsewhere along the coast the irregularities marked by the names of Brancaster Bay, Holkham Bay and Blakeney Harbour, are indentations in the sandy foreshore protected by blown sand and spits of shingle. At the mouth of the Great Ouse, at Lynn, and at the mouth of the Yare, at Yarmouth, where the united waters of the Waveney, Yare and Bure help to scour out a channel, we have the only two harbours of consequence in Norfolk. The harbours of Wells, Blakeney and Cley have deteriorated since the reclamation of the marshlands.' Among the beach deposits that of Weybourne, which stretches in a west-north-west direction from Weybourne for ten miles to the mouth of Blakeney Harbour, is of interest. The stones do not exhibit any gradual variation in size like those in the Chesil Beach. They consist mostly of flint, but include quartz, jasper, agate, carnelian, quartzite, and other rocks derived from the Glacial Drifts in the Cromer cliffs. The general movement of the beach is westward. On the east coast the shingle and sand travel southwards, and the mouth of the Yare has been constantly forced in that direction owing to the growth of sand and shingle which has formed a great natural embankment between the sea and the marsh- lands from East Caister southwards for about five miles. As remarked by Mr. J. B. Redman, this great area, 'equal to 1,600 acres, has been formed across what was a large estuary during the occupation of the country by the Romans.' After a.d. 1000 this bank became sufficiently sound for a settlement to be made on it, and the present town of Yarmouth was founded. It was then separated from Caister by a channel called Grubb's Haven, which was closed about the reign of Edward III. When the channels at the mouth of this estuary became choked, the influx of the tide became more and more restricted, the rivers in the drier seasons occupied but narrow channels, and these in course of time were embanked and the marshes for the most part became dry land.
- North Sea Pilot, part iii. p. 143. See also J. B. Redman, 'The East Coast between
the Thames and the Wash Estuaries,' Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., vol. xxiii., 1865, p. 186. 26
