St. Clair Beach Battle

Afternoon stride back towards St. Clair beach at low tide yesterday. Recent erosion following a storm has changed the beach again, the sand dunes are a little steeper and have exposed rubble at the base of the dunes. Apparently the first Esplanade was built as a dry stone wall in 1866 (some reports say 1875 or 1884) by land owner James Smith, and it wasn’t long before it was destroyed by the sea. Since then, it seems to have been an ongoing battle to manage the coastal issues resulting from the impact of the occasionally ferocious sea, with lots of opinions (in the form of fascinating letters to the editor in Papers Past), technical, scientific and engineering reports attempting to solve the issues. But as per local resident Mr JL McIndoe in 1936 in The Evening Star ‘The great charm of St. Clair lies in its beach’ - I couldn’t agree more.