When I left off last time, we'd explored the harbour and the abandoned cottages. These days, there are only two left, but there used to be four. The other two have presumably succumbed to the elements. It would be amazing to be here in a storm. This is looking out to sea through what used to be someone's bedroom or kitchen window:
It was time to explore the tunnel! (Not that I'd been looking forward to this bit or anything...) This is the entrance in the cliff. I imagine it probably hasn't changed much.
The tunnel immediately inside the entrance is pretty large, and you can see the bare rock has been reinforced with masonry and probably then covered with lime. A short way in, the roof rises suddenly and abruptly. It looks like probably there was a rockfall at some point. In the photo below you can see the edge of the arched tunnel towards the left of the picture. That's where the roof suddenly rises. The tunnel in this bit becomes basically like a square room, with a much rougher and lower tunnel leading off it into the cliff...
The "proper" tunnel. This is looking down the tunnel, with the room with the high roof just behind me. The tunnel is pretty long, and curves in the middle, following the line of the headland so you can't see daylight all the way through unless you stand in just the right place. Most of the way through the tunnel is this rough sandstone; this was all carved by hand.
Looking back to the entrance. You can see where the walls have been reinforced with brick. The tunnel slopes quite a lot too. Imagine walking back up here in the dark with a creel full of fish on your back.
The headland used to be riddled with cellars and caves. The villagers had carved cellars off the tunnel, on both sides. The information board at the top of the cliff had a diagram; there were cellars (connected to the main tunnel by small entrance tunnels) at regular intervals all the way along the tunnel. Unfortunately, they're all now boarded up for safety reasons - most of them had collapsed. The wording on the board was also amusing. It said that the cellars were officially used for storage for the fishermen, but that the sheer size and number of them, coupled with the remote location of Cove, made it hard to say that they definitively weren't used for smuggling. It reminded me that while I think of smuggling as something exciting and romantic, the people beating the evil government, the reality is that it was and still is very illegal. Just because it happened in the 1700s and 1800s doesn't mean that it's any less illegal.
Anyway, the positioning and shape of the bricks here suggest that they're more likely to be covering entrances to the cellars rather than supporting the roof.
Not all the cellars are bricked up though! Some of them were covered by heavy metal doors. My curiosity is boundless, I really want to see inside these. Not because I think there will be anything exciting in there, but because it's history. It's very personal history - people who lived and died in this area carved out the caves and would have been in and out of them often. It seems much more immediate than - for instance - walking through a stately house and seeing where the family lived. It's hard to explain why I feel that way though, but I do. Maybe I'm just nosy about people; that's probably why I'm an archaeologist!
Here you can see the edge of one of the metal doors. (This is looking back the way we came.) If you look at the rock wall on the left of the picture, you can see the pick marks from when the tunnel was made.
Towards the end of the tunnel, there are more cellar doors, metal ones this time. As the path exits the tunnel, it's covered by a corrugated iron roof for a short distance. The cliff here is made of quite loose sandstone, so it's to protect people from rock falls. Along the edge of the path, old railway sleepers have been used to prop up the earth and sand of the cliff, to stop it falling onto the path and blocking it. There are two places where there are little notches in the earth wall, where wooden cellar doors are. Both of the doors have fairly modern padlocks on them. Intriguing.
This is looking back across to the harbour wall with the cottages. You can see the headland through which we've just walked.
Looking back at the tunnel entrance. Here's one of the wooden cellar doors I mentioned; they reminded me a bit of hobbit holes, because they're only about 4 foot high. You'd have to bend over quite far to get in. You can also see the metal covering the path.
This is looking back across the bay. You can see the tunnel headland sloping down (it's a good indication of why the tunnel was necessary; they couldn't use the bay otherwise). The path up to the tunnel itself is in the top left of the photo; it's quite well camouflaged.
Standing in the same spot, but looking towards the harbour entrance.
At the foot of the cliff the beach is very rocky, but further round there are no rocks, just soft white sand. Here we are looking up at the the houses. The red one can be seen in photos of Cove in the 1900s; it was used for fish processing. The blue cottage is actually a rental cottage. It's fantastic on the inside; one day I am totally going to rent it and stay there for a week. Imagine having the whole bay to yourself! It would be quite remote, but I rather like that.
A closer look at the blue cottage. That's a very elderly decaying little dinghy in the foreground.
More pictures of the cottages on the harbour wall! This one demonstrates rather well how much of the harbour is actually built out of the natural rock.
This house was right on the beach; we reckoned that their ground floor must be flooded when the weather is bad; in the March 2010 storm at least, if not more often. To the left of the house, you can see they've blocked off a cave for storage. I like the fact that their washing line is just in front of it! This place was quite interesting though; it's evidently shut up, but in the glass window you can see a telescope, so it's definitely used and not empty. I imagined that it's maybe someone's holiday house and they come down here at the weekends. If it was me, I'd be lurking behind the telescope watching the weather.
Just beyond the red house the harbour wall meets the cliff. We scrambled up onto it, then climbed down the other side. The sandstone at this point had interesting purple flakes in it, so I took a picture.
While footering with pictures of purple sandstone, I noticed these strange holes in the rock. We couldn't work out what they were for. Maybe they dated to the time before the harbour had been built, when ships came up the channel alongside the cliffs here.
Beyond the harbour wall the ground underfoot was not so nice. We were walking in the bed of an old channel that looked like it had been carved out of the rock. There were seaweed covered rockpools just waiting for an unwary foot. The pools were accompanied by loose stones - also covered with seaweed. Progress was made by slipping and sliding from one foot to another, arms out on either side. We must have appeared like two drunken scarecrows.
Why were we doing this? Because legend told of a cave in the headland just beyond...
This large lump of rock sits at the end of the headland.
Standing beside the rocky lump (which had a natural arch in it), we could see across to Cathedral Rock. It looks rather more like a squat Norman church from this angle; I wouldn't really call it a Cathedral though.
The arch in the rocky lump:
Looking down the coast towards Eyemouth:
We rounded the end of the headland, and found ourselves face to face with the cave.
It may not look very impressive, but that's because there's no sense of scale. The roof was about twice as tall as me at the entrance. It's a sizeable cave, and it goes very far back into the cliff. It's one of the few that has been left in a natural state; presumably because it's so exposed, remote, and tidal.
Our desire to explore dank, dark, seaweedy places having been satiated, we headed back to dry land. From the top of the cliffs, I took a photo of Cove harbour. You can see the channel on the far right, running along beside the cliffs.
Back at home, it was a fantastic sunset:
Hi
ReplyDeleteI first visited here about thirty years ago with some chums when the cellars and rooms led of the main tunnel thro the headland. They were empty but it was a warren and tunnels went well into the hill. Better tunnels however are on the foreshore. If you go along the rocky shore below the footpath leading down from the carpark you can see the entrances. One in particular i visited 3 times ..each venturing further in!! I was so aware that this cliff is liable to landslip !!! The tunnel is very low to begin with but increases in height so you can walk stooped. About 50 yards in their is a set of steps going down to a lower tunnel..amazing...it goes then way into the hill. It has always had water in it when i have beenso we did not get further!! That was our excuse....we also got spooked .Its one of these places that is compelling and yet .....you know you should not be in there !!!! Still just finding the entrance is fun !!
alan