Coastal Heritage: Walton-on-the-Naze Public Open Space

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Coastal Heritage - East Coast of England - Essex

The Naze Public Open Space

~ Walton-on-the-Naze ~

HOMEPAGE

TOWNSITE

The Lighting of the Naze Beacon

to Commemorate the

200th. Anniversary of

Trafalgar Day

How it came into being: Originally the Naze headland that we know today was privately owned land. At the end of the eighteenth century it was part of Hall Farm, owned by James Rigby, a wealthy landowner who lived at Mistley Hall. (Incidentally, Rigby was the first owner to convert the Naze Tower into Tea Rooms). By the mid nineteenth century Sir John Henry Johnson owned the farm and he set about building effective sea defences with cliff drains and breakwaters. His legacy was to institute a legal covenant that established a 'duty of maintenance' for sea defences along the Naze peninsula. (This covenant was honoured thoughout the heyday of Seaside Walton up until the outbreak of WW2).

   In the 1920's the MP, E.A. Alexander, promoted a scheme to establish a golf course - designed by James Braid - to be developed on the seaward end of Hall Farm. The Golf Course duly opened in 1928, but by the late 1930's Alexander was in financial difficulties and by 1938 the Golf Club was bankrupt.

   At the outbreak of war in 1939 the foreshore was mined against the threat of a German invasion and the sea defences that Johnson had so carefully established nearly one hundred years previously became inaccessible. After the war, the Naze Tower was briefly converted to an experimental radar station. The Golf Clubhouse was still in military occupation as late as 1946 when it was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. With the onslaught of the 1953 East Coast Floods the neglected sea defences were finally destroyed and the Naze cliffs now came under constant attack from the sea.

   Eight years later, in the January of 1961, 78 acres of the land around the Naze Tower were sold for development. Godfrey Evans, the famous cricketer, headed a consortium to turn the site into a holiday camp. Planning application was refused, and after a public enquiry, his appeal was dismissed in October of that year. Meanwhile, in April, the cliffs and foreshore had been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of the unique 'red crag' fossils that had become exposed in the eroding cliffs. This now meant that it was the fossils that were now protected by goverment statute, while the land in which they were embedded was allowed to freely erode away under the terms of this statute!

   Finally, in 1963, Essex County Council - in conjunction with Frinton and Walton Urban District Council - purchased 155 acres of the blighted land for £75,000. Four years later the land ownership was wholly transferred to F&WUDC. So, at last, the Naze had become a Public Open Space - cared for by the council - with its wild beauty to be appreciated by all!

   However, with the conflict of interests over the SSSI designation and the council obligations to protect the coastline, a stalemate ensued that has gone on ever since. In 1974, local goverment was extensively reorganised and Tendring District Council then inherited the responsibilities of land ownership - including the unresolved controversy regarding coastal protection.

   Over the past forty years successive schemes to protect the Naze- that have been both practical and cost effective - have been summarily dismissed in the interests of preserving and exposing the red crag fossil beds. During this environmentally turbulent period various pressure groups have been working to bring about a break-through to the institutionalized bureaucratic intransigence of the powers-that-be. In 1997 the Naze Protection Society was formed to continue the struggle. In 2005 a consensus is finally been achieved. In 2006 the Society's Heritage Project for the Naze cliffs is finally established as a funding prospect.

A sudden rain squall fails to dampen proceedings!

MARITIME HERITAGE

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Walton-on-the-Naze Golf Course: 1928 - 1938

Golf on the Naze (The Map is Orientated West-Upwards)

A few years back - in 1998 - in a second-hand junk shop in the town of Barnet, Hertfordshire, amongst some dusty sporting equipment a chance find was made of a golf club inscribed with the words: “C.G. Bright, WALTON-ON-NAZE”.

A golf course at Walton on the Naze?

It is difficult to imagine that between the years 1928 and 1938 there was a thriving golf course up at the northern part of the Naze promontory - and that Charles Bright was its first club coach.

Now there is just shrubland, low cliffs and sparse sand denuded to the grey slippery clay beneath... To some this is perhaps a sad reminder to the faded cliff-top glory of days gone by. To others it bears graphic testimony to the erosive and destructive power of the relentless sea.

The golf course has gone - forever. The Naze Protection Society aims to ensure that the rest of the Naze will not follow. The proposed LIVING NAZE regeneration project for 2007, to be sited adjacent to the Public Open Space, embodies hope for the future...

The Naze Walk