Discover Dunwich Museum newsletter Issue 1 2019 Welcome THIS IS the first edition of Discover Dunwich, the newsletter for and by volunteers, staff, trustees and visitors of Dunwich Museum and the Dun- wich community. It is hoped that this publication will come out two or three times a year, in print and (in colour) in a pdf format emailed to those who put their name on a mailing list and accessible via the website. The deadline for the next print Dunwich Museum celebrates 100 years of votes for women – see back page. edition will be 21 April 2019. Sub- mission to: Matt Salusbury, editor, via [email protected] or care of Dunwich Museum, St James St, The Bells! The Bells! Dunwich, , IP17 3DT. Phantom bell legends from Dunwich and nationwide Volunteers are always needed at the IS IT true about the bells? Most visitors to how left churches and their bells intact under Museum – contact details are below. Dunwich Museum ask that question, along the waves. The truth was very different. With Matt Salusbury, editor with the other question about whether the the cliffs gradually crumbling away, parish- coastal erosion still continues. ioners would have had many years’ warning DUNWICH MUSEUM The phantom bells at Dunwich, though ob- that their church was approaching the end of 01728 648796 or 07979 vious nonsense, are actually among the more its life, giving them time to strip out the valu- 428058 plausible of Britain’s phantom bell legends, able bells. Dunwich parish records show St manager@ as I discovered when I researched these. At Nicholas’s church had a receipt for the sale of dunwichmuseum.org.uk least churches had actually once stood in its bells to build a pier to protect the original schools bookings: Dunwich – more than can be said for the lo- St James’s church as the sea advanced. cations of many phantom bell legends! There are a few places in the UK where schools@dunwichmuse- Dunwich’s phantom bells peal at night in there actually was a church lost to the sea, um.org.uk some versions of the tradition, while in most besides Dunwich. St Anne’s on Sea in Lan- www.dunwichmuseum. such legends they are heard before a storm, cashire once had one, it’s now off the coast. org.uk or on a particular “holy day.” The bells of the church at Walton-on-the- According to Dunwich Suffolk (Jean and Naze off the Essex coast – taken by the sea Stuart Bacon, 1975) Master Mariner John in the 1790s – are said to warn of incom- Day in 1856 claimed to have known his posi- ing storms. The church is said to have re- MUSEUM OPENING: tion when making for Bank by the appeared above the waves briefly in 1928, Reopening for 2019 – tolling of a submerged bell from a church at although Brian Jennings of the Frinton and Dunwich. Walton Heritage Society told me the location February half term: Rowland Parker, author of Men of Dunwich, of the church has never been confirmed and 16 February 2019-24 had “never heard any local talk of bells toll- that witnesses probably misidentified brick ing out to sea” as of 1979. But in a recent en- groynes built out to sea. February 2019, try to the Dunwich Museum enquiries book, Some more plausible phantom bell legends 2pm-4pm. a visitor staying at Dunwich Heath claims come from the Cornish coast. In these it is of- that at the end of 2017 they were woken by ten ships’ bells that toll after they have sunk. Open March weekends short “peals” from bells late at night com- It’s the bell of the ship Neptune that are sup- ing from Dunwich. (The current St James’s posed to ring off the coast at St Ives. 2pm-4pm. Then open Church has a single automated bell that just Unlikely traditions about phantom bells daily 11.30-4.30 from 1st tolls the hour – it can’t ring peals.) include one from Kirksanton in Cumbria, Some visitors imagine Dunwich was swept where a village church is said to have once April 2019 onwards. away in an Atlantis-style tsunami that some- BELLS – see back page Recentitems handed into the findsMuseum by visitors during the 2018 season Pliocene Blue Planet out near Cliff House at low tide mark after a storm Tim Holt-Wilson writes should look for this bed and MRS SANDIE Sheals from Chester re- its fossil debris. It may ex- cently dropped a lump of stony matter tend below beach level fur- off at the Museum. Yellowish-brown in ther north up towards the colour; cylindrical, about 15 inches by village, and may well be the 13; with low protuberances sticking out; source of the whale fossils. a honey-combed texture in places and How old is it? It is likely to looking battered and worn by the sea. be part of the Norwich Crag She found it on the beach fronting Dun- Formation, of early Pleisto- wich Marsh, towards . cene age about two million Earlier this year I was given a similar years old, which forms a object found on the beach at Felixs- greater part of the sandy and towe. Having worked on the fossil ver- gravelly cliffs at Dunwich. tebrates at Museum, I knew it The whale vertebra (DUWHM: N182) It also includes horizons of ferruginous (iron-rich) sands was the sea-battered centre of a whale ange in colour and heavily mineralised with fossil shells occurring at about vertebra, minus its various lateral and with iron. sea-level at nearby Sizewell. Bits of fer- spinous processes. It had come from There is some interesting 19th century ruginous mudstone can be found on the the Red Crag strata of late Pliocene or information which records a “shell-bed beach and are occasionally handed in at early Pleistocene age (about 2.8 million exposed in the cliff at Dunwich. This the Museum. I suspect they have been years old) which outcrop locally along bed, a red crag, appeared in patches at the derived from this hidden, iron-rich stra- the coast. Curiosity drove me to find out foot of the cliff about 1500 yards south tum. They contain little sparkling flecks more about the Crag whales of Suffolk. of the church-in-ruins…. Mammalian of the mineral mica. I investigated the geological literature remains were also found, and these ap- What was life like in our local cor- and even visited the British Museum of peared to come from a hard ferruginous ner of the Blue Planet in Norwich Crag Natural History, where I met a cetacean bed of clay and sand, shown here and times, about 2 million years ago? The researcher, Dr Travis Park, and spent an there on the beach, some feet below the was a bight or cul-de-sac, as interesting three hours looking through shell-bed in the cliff” . Mammal remains the Straits of Dover had not yet opened. their collection of Suffolk finds. including whale vertebrae and rib fos- The climate was temperate, and the lo- Whale fossils are often found along the sils had been found, as well as elephant, cation of Dunwich was under water, as coast of Suffolk, as nondescript lumps of horse and rhinoceros bones and teeth. I the sea stretched as far west as Essex and bone. Most useful for researchers are the have never seen an exposure of this ‘red Hertfordshire. Offshore sands were de- dense bones from the inner ear, which crag’ but anyone who finds themselves look rather like knobbly, brown beans with a curled over, ear-like flange on one side. Fossil whale species can be distin- guished on the basis of these bones, so they are definitely worth finding. Our Dunwich specimen (catalogue number N182) is a lumbar or caudal (tail) vertebra, most likely from a small baleen (mysticete, filter feeders, like a blue whale or right whale) or medium- to-large toothed whale (odontocete, like a sperm whale). It is not possible to be more precise. Its colour and state of pres- ervation suggest it may have originated in the Red Crag, but was then perhaps eroded out and incorporated into the later Norwich Crag strata that outcrop at Dunwich, dated about two million years ago. It is in a similar state to the Crag Complete vertebra from a modern whale. Image: Eschricht, DF & whale vertebra (N157) in the display Reinhardt, J. from: Flower, WH (ed). Recent Memoirs of the Ceta- case near the back door of the Museum. There is also a fragment of whale rib, or- cea. Ray Society, London, 1866. Out of copyright posited in the Dunwich area. Sponge Bob dinosaur Next time you are in the Museum and Dunwich Voices pass the whale vertebra near the back contemporary review door, spare a thought for the cetacean (whale) inhabitants of the Blue Planet in Norwich Crag times. They are the ancestors of today’s wonderful whale species. Old bones may have interesting stories to tell.

Our vertebra could be from a smaller toothed whale like this one. Photo: Wikimedia Commons I FOUND this strange object on a desert- DVD, Caroline Gay Way, Mindscapes ed stretch of beach between Dingle and On sale in Dunwich Museum Beast from the East Walberswick Sluice in February 2018. loosens ack-ack bits? I had no idea what it was, it resembled A collection including poems (some set to an ancient Greek vase encrusted with music) together with a collage of images, concrete. I accidentally dropped it and it Dunwich Voices transports you to 13th shattered, but I was able to glue all the century Dunwich, a bustling cosmopoli- bits back together. tan town at its zenith just before the Great Geologist Tim Holt-Wilson could im- Storm of 1286. It also gives a glimpse of mediately identify it – it’s a prehistoric Dunwich when the Great Storm strikes fossil sponge, a “tulip sponge” covered and in its aftermath. in a layer of sediment, from the Siphonia By turns eerie, joyful, humorous, evoc- family. You can still see the honeycomb ative, atmospheric and haunting, it brings structure of the sponge on the inside. to life the history of our once flourishing Our sponge was from the Cretaceous village. period, around 65million years ago, so It’s a historical gem – a most interest- contemporary with the last dinosaurs, ing slice of Suffolk history, a mosaic when Suffolk was mostly under the sea. of historical record, interpretation and It’s not from the much younger types of charming vignettes encompassing life in rock we find on the Suffolk coast, so it the 13th century. Some of the poems are would have come from out in the North based on historical facts, but there is also THIS IS one of several bags of frag- Sea somewhere, “rolled” ashore by the considerable artistic licence. ments of some type of brass artillery action of the waves over many years. (I One incident that was rumoured to have shell from World War Two handed into found it just after a big tidal surge.) happened involved townspeople attack- the Museum. Many of these seem to The Siphonia is now in the Museum ing the houses of “traitors” who moved have been loosened from the cliffs, bits stores awaiting cataloguing. inland after the devastation of the Great of which crumbled away in the Beast Matt Salusbury Storm, such was the strength of feeling from the East, particularly at Dunwich amongst some. Heath. Dunwich Voices has already had per- The fragments shown above are from formances locally including a full house the Dunwich Beach car park. Shell at the Dunwich Reading Room. It’s going parts also seem to be turning up at Wal- to the 2019 Venice Biennale, while there berswick Sluice. Some fragments are are also plans for possible son et lumière stamped with numbers. performance with a light show projected Several visitors who handed these onto the walls of local churches, or for fragments in thought they were from an interactive experience on tablets and anti-aircraft shells – possibly from the through headphones for visitors to the 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns deployed in Dunwich Museum. World War Two along the coast against German V1 missiles passing over the “Saint Felix” Suffolk en route to London. Reconstruction of live Siphonia Conservation tutorial at Dunwich Museum AT THE Museum we pride ourselves sible. After that we applied a hair-dryer that our collection is maintained in at full heat while polishing and rubbing tip-top condition, but it’s always worth the wax as hard as possible. The elbow getting a review and we needed some grease paid off; soon the smoother parts training to maintain the Armada cannon acquired a pleasing lustre. Another piece – not in full working order, you’ll be of our heritage was protected from the glad to hear. ravages of time, and visitors. Robert (Bob) Entwhistle is senior con- While I finished up the gun, Bob popped servator for the Ipswich and Colchester in to see Tim Holt-Wilson, the archivist, Polishing silver (from left:) Nick Museum Service and doesn’t come more with Angela and Nick from the Town Mayo, John Cary, Bob Entwhistle, qualified in his field. So we were delight- Trust. Annie Bayman, Angela Abell ed when he said he would give up a day Bob gave Tim a few useful tips on pa- of his time to talk and demonstrate to a stand and medieval halfpennies. On his per conservation and Tim was able to group of eager volunteers. instructions we had bought some Pacific show everyone how thoroughly and pro- Bob turned up with two large boxes cloth we will use to line the display cabi- fessionally the archive systems worked. of chemicals, cleaning materials, and a net over the winter break – it absorbs John Cary lifetime’s experience. First we set about sulphur in the atmosphere and stops fur- Photo: Jane Hamilton the beautiful Tudor silver collection of ther corrosion. the Corporation of Dunwich, now the Next the Armada gun: Royal Armou- BELLS – from front page Dunwich Town Trust. Who better than ries had asked us to wax it once a year, stood and to have sunk beneath the ground, its to buff them up but Angela Abell the and we needed some training to apply bells audible if you put your ear on the earth Chair, and Nick Mayo also of the Town the wax and use it properly. Again micro- of the Village Green. Trust! Bob showed us how to carefully crystaline wax was the thing to use (it’s Many such legends come from the Welsh apply the polish and then clean it off marvellous stuff and we’ve got a bucket coast, where tolling phantom bells are said with methylated spirit before applying of it now). Firstly we had to clean the to have been stolen and dumped at new off- micro-crystaline wax to keep the air out bronze surface with methylated spirit to shore locations by the Devil himself. One can and preserve it for a lot longer than a dip remove the grease of a thousand hands. supposedly be heard warning of storms ap- proaching Whitesand Bay in Pembrokeshire. in Goddards silver polish would. Addi- Then we rubbed in lumps of the hard Still in Wales but inland, there is said to tionally there was the telescope, writing wax and spread it around as best as pos- have once been a “cathedral” at Llangorse Lake in Brecon, “before it was flooded” and whose bells still ring out on “holy days.” Since Llangorse was formed at least 10,000 years ago, this is credibility-stretcher. A gently pealing bell can be heard under the aWhat’s review of the year’s events on and what’s happening in 2019 waters of Nigg Bay in the Scottish Highlands. From London’s suburbs comes the tradition that Old Church Road in Romford, Essex, EVENTS at Dunwich Museum in 2018 recalls a church that “sank into the ground” included “Votes For Women!” family leaving only the sound of phantom bells ev- activities every Thursday in August. ery St Andrew’s Day. This featured craft activities celebrat- How are landlocked churches supposed to ing anniversaries of events from 1918 – have sunk into the earth? The wrath of God some women getting the vote, the birth upon sinners is sometimes cited. Phantom of the RAF and the end of World War peals are accompanied by bubbles rising from One. There was Edwardian-style gin- the ground as the church sinks closer to Hell ger beer and skittles and a “suffrage and at Bell Hole marshes at Tunstall in . Bells can also be heard on Christmas Eve peace march” by Museum volunteers coming from Bomere Pool in Shrewsbury, and staff in Edwardian costume carry- said to be the site of a village church demol- ing “Votes For Women” placards from ished by divine retribution after a parishioner the Museum to The Ship at Dunwich “mocked God.” pub, where they chained themselves to Visitors show off the badges and ro- In Nottinghamshire, phantom bells are said the anchor in the front garden with paper settes they made in Suffragette colours to ring on Christmas Day at the site of the vil- chains. (See front page photo.) during a “Votes for Women” craft ac- lage church of Raleigh. This settlement really A pottery expert, Sue Anderson, who is tivities day. Photo: Jane Hamilton was flattened by the East Midlands - Earth conducting a survey of pottery held in quake of 1185, although not “swallowed up” – check on the website www.dunwich- as legend tells. local museums in the region, came for museum.org.uk and on Twitter at @ There is also said to be a Sunken Church a day to look through our collection. DunwichMuseum for updates. at Coningsby, Lincolnshire, whose bells toll She gave us a talk on identifying pot- 2019 special exhibitions include – pro- every year on the anniversary of it being de- tery from different periods. It was well visionally – Stewart Bacon’s collection stroyed by God’s wrath. The location has a attended with visitors from other local of finds from the Dunwich and Orford natural rock formation slightly resembling the rubble of a church. museums. dives in the 1970s and early 1980s. Events for 2019 are still being planned Matt Salusbury