Death by Flood
Tides and the intertidal areas they expose are, very obviously, things to be very cautious of when living or walking by the coast, and particularly on inter-tidal lands at low tide.
There are, sadly, many stories of people, and animals, being drowned by in-coming tides. On occasions huge floods, caused by storm surges adding to a high tide have occurred and bring death and destruction to some or other coast. Below I will briefly mention three of the most severe that have happen in Britain. And there are other, dark and bizarre tales of tides and death, which I relate after those.
The Great Flood, 1606(7). The Severn Estuary
Throughout Britain’s history there have been catastrophic episodes of coastal flooding where high tides, exaggerated by storm surges, have overtopped sea defences and caused huge floods. In 1607 this happened along the shores of the Bristol Channel and Seven Estuary when as many as two thousand people drowned. This was recorded in a famous pamphlet written soon after the event, which have woodcut illustrations. To this day flood level marks can be seen cut into the stone of the church of the estuary’s lowlands. See here for a fuller account. https://www.aforgottenlandscape.org.uk/projects/1607-the-great-severn-estuary-flood/
THe Great Storm,1703. Southern and Central England and Wales.
‘The great storm of 1703 was a destructive extratropical cyclone that struck central and southern England on 26 November 1703. High winds caused 2,000 chimney stacks to collapse in London and damaged the New Forest, which lost 4,000 oaks. Ships were blown hundreds of miles off-course.’ Source – Wikipedia .
‘The Great Tide’, 1953. Southern North Sea, England and Holland.
In 1953 a devastating flood affected Eastern England drowning as many as 300 people on the coasts of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. Areas of Holland on the east coast of the North Sea were also badly affected, and many died there too. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953
Drowned by Incoming Tides
Floods which over top sea defences aside, very sadly, many people have perished when they have ventured beyond the seawall and into the intertidal zone for either curiosity, leisure, or work.
The Broomway in Essex, UK, is deemed to be the ‘deadliest path in Britain’. It is an ancient track across the intertidal flats of the Thames Estuary, including Maplin Sands. For centuries, it was a route for accessing Foulness Island. The path consists of harder sand in the vast mud and sand flats of the area, firm enough to walk or even ride on. Its name derives from the fact that the local landowner has an obligation to mark the path with short branches of Broom. The tide recedes up to 5 km on the higher/lower tides and then rushes back in on the next flood. Safe passage is possible for those with local knowledge, but it is highly dangerous otherwise. This danger is greatly amplified, even for those with local knowledge, if the weather deteriorates and fog, in particular, reduces visibility.
Up to 100 peoplel are reckoned to have drowned over the centuries. Many were those going about their dialy duties, such as a doctor walking to and from a patient on the island. The Foulness Burial Register records 66 bodies recovered from the sands since 1600.
There is a BBC article about the Broomway here
In 2024 the BBC Radio 4 programme featured the Broomway. It can be heard here. But it might not remain online past a certain date.
Perhaps most notoriously, in the UK, as many as twenty-one Chinese illegal immigrant labourers were drowned by an incoming tide while picking cockles off the Lancashire coast on Morecambe Bay. Now called the Morecambe Bay Cockling Disaster, this occurred on the evening of 5 February 2004, when those drowned were taken unawares by the speed of the incoming tide. Much more information is here on Wikipedia The famous Irish folk Singer Christie Moore wrote folk song about the disaster. The lyrics contain the line ‘the tide is the very devil….’
A very sad example, local to me, and the Severn Estuary, is the tragic case of two young cousins who were playing whilst exploring the intertidal areas of Beachley Point near Chepstow. One of the boys, Chepstow schoolboy Jamie-Lee Wilson Cartwright, eight, drowned when they got in trouble because of the incoming tide. His cousin Kyle, then nine, survived thanks to the quick-thinking of a bird-watcher who heard their shouts for help and the work of members of the Severn Area Rescue Association (SARA). Jamie-Lee lived in Beachley, and floral and other tributes are still placed on the shore close to where he tragically drowned.
A fouth and very horrible tale is of a father and son who were drowned by an incoming tide at Ulverston Bay, Cumbria, 06 01 2002. On a fishing trip, they were walking on the intertidal area of Morecambe Bay, when dense fog came down and they could not see which direction to head as a high spring tide was coming in. The father had a mobile phone and was in touch with the police in a series of increasingly desperate calls. He ended up wading in the deepening water, carrying his son on his shoulders as they tried to find a way to shore, but they tragically failed to do so. Their bodies were found in the following day. Source here (Guardian).
But I suppose tides will always result in such tragic accidents on occasions. Here I now focus on other intertidal death stories of stranger, and more macabre natures.
Murder by Tide
The story, a Tragedy of the Tides, in the collection Earth’s Enigmas; a Volume of Stories, by Charles G D Roberts, published in 1896, tells how a young colonial couple were kidnapped by native American Indians in what is now Canada. They were taken on a long forced walk, and by canoe, for two day before being executed. The were so by being staked out, standing, in a muddy creek at low tide and drowned as the tide came in. The man was positioned lower in the intertidal zone so that the woman would witness his death before drowning herself. The couple were reported as missing from city of Halifax on the afternoon of September 18th, 1749. The story reports that the Indians were waiting by the creek to watch the tide rise, but were disturbed by other colonists and made off. Attempts were made to save the couple by freeing them – but to no avail. The creek in the story is named as the Tantramar, which is near Halifax, Nova Scotia. The full text of the story is on line at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20231/20231-h/20231-h.htm#A_Tragedy_of_the_Tides
The Duplicitous Royalist Ferryman!
Another Severn Estuary tale is of a ferryman loyal to King Charles I in the English Civil War who carried a group of Royalist soldiers across the estuary near Aust. He was then forced ‘at sword point’ to also ferry a group of pursuing rebel soldiers across the water. At low tide the estuary does look like it is possible to walk across many of the sand banks and rocky areas to and from the shore. So he landed the soldiers on an area called ‘The English Stones’, assuring them that they could from there walk the rest of the way, but this was not in fact true, as even at the lowest tides the Stones are cut off from the bank by a deep channel with fast currents called The English Lake. The soldiers were all drowned by the rising tide. The English Stones now support part of the Second Severn Road Crossing.
Unholy Burial by Tides
In the period of terrible witch trials in Scotland, in 1704 at Torryburn on the south west Fife coast, a woman Lilias Adie confessed to being a witch and having sex with the devil after a long period of incarcerations and interrogation. But she died, probably as suicide, in prison before she could be finally tried, sentenced and burned. The disposal of her body was a problem to the church and authorities given her probable suicide and her supposed crime of witchcraft. So she was buried in the muddy intertidal area of Torryburn Bay, and a large flat sandstone slab lain over her resting place, in the hope this would stop the devil bringing her back from the dead. A series of folk songs by Heal & Harrow, harpist Rachel Newton and the fiddler Lauren MacColl, have now been created about the Scottish witch trials, including one about Lilias Adie.
Death on The Goodwin Sands in the 1703 storm
And here I cannot omit that great Notice has been taken of the Towns-people of _Deal_ who are blam’d, and I doubt not with too much Reason for their great Barbarity in neglecting to save the Lives of abundance of poor Wretches; who having hung upon the Masts and Rigging of the Ships, or floated upon the broken Pieces of Wrecks, had gotten a Shore upon the _Goodwin Sands_ when the Tide was out. It was, without doubt, a sad Spectacle to behold the poor Seamen walking too and fro upon the Sands, to view their Postures, and the Signals they made for help, which, by the Assistance of Glasses was easily seen from the Shore. Here they had a few Hours Reprieve, but had neither present Refreshment, nor any hopes of Life, for they were sure to be all wash’d into another World at the Reflux of the Tide. Some Boats are said to come very near them in quest of Booty, and in search of Plunder, and to carry off what they could get, but no Body concern’d themselves for the Lives of these miserable Creatures.
Death and Foraging!
The rich fruits of the sea exposed at low tide have, since the very earliest times, attracted foragers, both human and animal. This too brings risks, and on occasions strange deaths. Adam Nicolson, in his great book, Life Between the Tides, tells of a kittiwake, found dead on the tideline with its foot locked in the grasp of a large mussel. Similarly a rat, its paw trapped underneath a limpet as it clung to its rocky berth. And, perhaps, most tellingly, a fox, a vixen, found drowned with her tongue trapped in a large mussel. This giving the name to The Bay of the Red Fox on the west coast of Scotland.
Tidal Cultures 