We now come to the story of the dredging. Before the dredging began the beach at Hallsands was relatively stable. Some movement of sand and shingle would be detected from time to time, and at times the level of the beach might fall for a temporary period, but until 1897 there was no overall loss of shingle. As reported in 1904 by R Hansford Worth, a civil engineer and geologist, much of the shingle consisted of Dartmoor felsite that must have drifted from the north in the distant past and reached a state of equilibrium at the southern end of Start Bay.
R Hansford Worth, Hallsands and Start Bay, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art, 1904 36 302-346. I cannot resist giving the title of the journal in full.
Near the end of the nineteenth century the Admiralty decided to enlarge the docks at Devonport in order to accommodate the growth in the size of their ships. The contract for this work was awarded to the firm of Sir John Jackson. In November 1896 Sir John Jackson was granted a licence by the Board of Trade to dredge and remove sand, shingle, gravel, and other material from the bed of the sea below the low water mark. Attached to the licence was a plan indicating the area where dredging would be allowed. It began a short distance north of Hallsands. A term of the licence was that if the operation should damage the foreshore defences of the adjacent land then the licence would be cancelled.
Soon afterwards Sir John Jackson obtained a similar licence from the Office of Woods that permitted the removal of sand and shingle from the foreshore between high and low water marks. A clause in this agreement stated that the work should be done in such a way that the land above the high water mark should not be exposed to the encroachment of the sea.
Dredging began in or around April 1897. At first a bucket-ladder dredger was used, but later it was replaced by two suction-pump dredgers. The shingle was loaded into hopper barges with a capacity of 1100 tons each and then transported to Devonport.
The fishermen of Hallsands, and of the neighbouring village of Beesands, were immediately alarmed. They had not been consulted about the dredging. The Board of Trade carried out an inspection in June 1897. The outcome was that the licence was not withdrawn, but Sir John Jackson undertook to pay the fishermen of Hallsands £125 a year while the dredging continued, together with a Christmas gratuity of £20. The payments were intended to compensate for the interference with fishing, not for any damage to the shoreline.
By 1900 it was apparent to the people of Hallsands that the level of the beach in front of their village was falling. There was now a gap at the foot of steps leading down to the beach. Large rocks that had previously been wholly or partly hidden by the beach were now fully exposed. It was becoming more difficult to pull boats ashore and the space available to store them was shrinking rapidly. Seine fishing was becoming more difficult as the sea bed was more rocky than before.
By November 1900 the sea was sometimes lashing the walls and foundations of buildings on the seaward side of the road through Hallsands. The owner of the London Inn, Mr Spital, pointed out a wall where “people used to play capers with a donkey and make him jump it.” He added that on the seaward side of the wall there was now a drop of nearly fifteen feet, “enough to kill any donkey who took the wall now.”
What must have happened is that the dredging created huge spaces in the foreshore just north of Hallsands and large quantities of sand and shingle were moving from the Hallsands beach to fill the spaces.
In May 1901 the people of Beesands protested against the dredging by pulling the dredger buoys ashore near their village. As a result dredging ceased close to Beesands. The men of Hallsands threatened similar action on 1 January 1902, but unknown to them a decision had already been taken to end dredging at Hallsands as well. The Board of Trade had sent another inspector, Captain Frederick, in September 1901. His report concluded that much damage had already been done, and more would occur if the dredging were allowed to continue. The licence to dredge was revoked with effect from 8 January 1902.