A Portland historian has completed a passion project documenting coast protection works to an incredible Dorset beach.
Stuart Morris has put together a new video on Chesil Beach's coast protection works on Portland, which took place from 1962 to 1967, and which he was involved in during his career as an engineer.
He has made a documentary which has been uploaded to YouTube, it includes footage from an 8mm cine film Mr Morris took of the works, which were the final stages of the complex civil engineering scheme on the Jurassic Coast.
It is narrated by Mr Morris, who was the designer and resident engineer of the last stage.
Mr Morris said: "It’s taken many years to get around to making it."
The beach forms a natural protection for the village of Chiswell, just beyond the shingle bank, but through the centuries storms have diminished that protection eroding the bank and exposing houses and cottages to sometimes devastating sea flooding.
In the late 1950s Portland Urban Council embarked on 'bold and ambitious' schemes to construct sea walls for coast protection to safeguard Chiswell.
You can watch the video here.
In the video Mr Morris tells of his own involvement in a project to deal with a high, crumbling cliff at Chesil Cove.
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"It was rapidly being eroded by intense weather and wave action. A footpath and some cove cottages and houses were perilously close to that unstable cliff.
"Cliff falls were a danger to anyone on the beach."
A deep trench was excavated for the foundation. The wall supported a wide promenade. The stage 3 sea wall was completed in December 1962 and more than 60 years later remains in excellent condition having endured numerous storms.
A vast area of Kimmeridge clay moved en masse towards the beach, leaving the land distorted.
The clay hillside continued to move frequently over the next 100 years and in the 1960s there was alarm that the 'landsliding' was accelerating.
At risk were a number of recreational huts and the path to Hallelujah Bay, which had to be rebuilt frequently due to the landslips.
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Overseeing these coast protection works was Eric B Cullen and his deputy Jeffrey King. The entire scheme was designed and worked up inhouse and Mr Morris was the capital works engineer based in the council offices in Fortuneswell.
In 1963 the urgency of the work became apparent, Mr Morris said, because the rate of erosion to West Weares accelerated and there was a risk to the houses and school to the east of the site.
The plan to counteract this was to construct a 10ft high mass concrete wall similar in profile to the early stages.
You can find out more about how this was designed and the detail of the coast protection works by viewing Mr Morris's video (see the link above).
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