Page 30 • The HERALD • 4th January 2024 v THE HERALD - YOUR COMMUNITY MAGAZINE v • Airport & Seaport Specialists • Highly Competitive Fares • Friendly, Reliable Service • Comfortable 6 Seater MPVs • Any Distance - Minimum Fare £10 Before booking your journey please call us for a free quotation 07770 967198 or 023 8194 8754 www.kazcarz.co.uk New Forest Scaffolding All aspects of scaffolding undertaken • Extensions • Chimneys • Re-Roofing • New Builds etc For a friendly, local, reliable service and a free quotation Telephone: 07734 476855 www.newforestscaffolding.co.uk Full Liability Insurance Lychette Cottage, Roughdown, Blackfield SO45 1XG Professional installers of Fascias, Guttering, Cladding, PVCu Windows & Doors Composite Doors • 10 year labour and product guarantees Repairs, cleaning and advice also available Tel: 023 8086 9715 or 07888 705455 enquiries@aztecfascias.com THE SOLENT PART 1 by Patricia Hedley-Goddard When the name ‘the Solent’ is mentioned, most people in the Waterside area will quite rightly picture a stretch of water between the north side of the Isle of Wight and the central southern coast of England. In this busy area of the coast, famous for the Cowes Yachting Races, many small sailing cra , ferries to and from both the Isle of Wight and France, wind surfers etc. can be seen. e position of the Lepe Country Park and surrounding vicinity make it an ideal place for spotting many birds, for children to nd shells and small crabs, di erent seaweeds etc and to go paddling and digging with their bucket and spade and for swimming. However, this area has not always been such a haven and area for leisure. e Solent Basin o cially encompasses an area from around Keyhaven, where Hurst Castle is built on a shingle spit in the west, to Chichester/Selsey Bill in the east. Around 11,500 years ago during the Halocene period when the climate began to warm up, the sea was around 30-40 meters below what it is now. is was because the land was still covered with ice sheets and permafrost. As this gradually melted the sea rose. Before 8000 years ago in the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age), the Solent as we know it, did not exist. e hunter gatherer population of that time could walk to what was to become the ‘Isle of Wight’, as it was not separated from mainland England. e earth was coming out of an ice age where sheets of ice covered much of Europe and the melting ice caused a rise in sea levels. e current average depth of e Solent is around 151 feet (46 metres), but at its deepest point it is 565 feet (172 metres). e depth of e Solent has changed many times throughout its existence depending on whether the earth is coming out of a ‘warm stage’, which gives higher sea levels, or a ‘cold stage’ when the water is frozen into ice for many months of the year and the water depth is reduced. So, how did the ‘Solent’ come into existence? Originally, there was a river at the bottom of a valley between what is now the Isle of Wight and the south coast of mainland England. Over a great many decades, there was (and still is) a ‘braided’ river system inland on the south side at the foot of the Downs. ese rivers ow into the ‘Solent Basin’ as well as owing at the foot of the downs until they meet the Rivers Test, Itchen and Hamble. ese rivers contribute 45% of the fresh water which ows directly into the sea via Southampton Water. However, on its way to the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean, the ow of the river encounters a hard rock formation on the north east end of the Isle of Wight, which splits the main course of the sea bound river, into two parts, some of which ows into what is now the Solent Basin. e main body of the Solent is marine (salty). Over the millennia, the tides and currents have distributed gravel, sand and mud over its bed, and thrown up shingle on to the shores. At the Hurst Spit on the western end of the Solent the coastal processes are actively deepening and widening the seaway channel. During the ice age there originally existed a chalk ridge which connected the Isle of Wight with Purbeck. e Needles at the western ends of the Isle of Wight, and loam and sand. During the paleoenvironmental period (250,000 to 30,000 years ago), submerged remains of elephant and bison have been recorded o of the Isle of Wight around the Newtown area. Deposits of interglacial fauna have been identi ed at Stone Point, Lepe. At the other end of the Solent around the Lee on Solent area, it was quite possible to nd sharks teeth on the beach. All this indicating the changing life within the Solent over the millennia. e Solent region has been recorded as containing more Palaeolithic sites than anywhere else in the country. Around 11,000 BC the marine landscape of the Solent was changing from one containing fresh water river systems running through incised valleys to marine conditions caused by rising sea levels. ere were humans living in the inter and sub tidal zones during the Mesolithic period. ese inhabitants were just emerging from being hunter gatherers into becoming a more settled population where they cleared land to grow grain. Simple tools were being developed to aid this new way of living. ey also improved their technology and used bows and arrows instead of just spears. is was partly due to the larger animals dying out as the climate changed, and smaller, eeter animals such as boar, deer, and wolf inhabiting the surrounding woodland. A recent dive in the Solent by Garry Momber (MD of the Maritime Archaeology Trust) revealed the presence of wheat grains in the sample extracted from the sea bed, which proved that wheat was grown in this area 2000 years earlier than previously recorded. During the bronze age, (approximately 3300BC to 1200BC years ago) large scale deforestation of ancient woodland took place which led to the soils being washed down into the river estuary. Over the last 3,700 years the sea level at Fawley has risen approximately 4.5metres. Around 1000BC Iron Age activity was developed. Many artifacts such as int tools have been recovered by sherman over the years. On the east bank of the Beaulieu river at Exbury the remains of a defended enclosure has been discovered. In 1997 a submerged forest was discovered under the Solent. Lepe Country Park contains deposits from both ‘warm’ and ice age periods dating from 200,000 years to 30,000 years ago. Successive layers of gravel, clay, and Old Harry Rocks at Swanage are part of the eroded remains of the chalk barrier which once protected the river Solent. It is possible that the river Frome actually was a part of the river Solent at that time. is ridge was broached and ooded by the sea, making it an inland seaway, bringing di erent types of soil deposits such as gravels, Continued on page 31
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTIyNzI=