The conclusion appears to be this. There is no reason to suppose that the coast-line between Sandown Castle and Walmer Castle was very different in Caesar’s time from that which is depicted on the Ordnance Map; and there is positive proof that between Walmer Castle and Deal Castle, at some period of the Roman occupation, it was nearly the same. On the other hand, it is certain that since Caesar landed a great deal of shingle has accumulated along this part of the coast, especially at Walmer; and it may be inferred that the beach was less steep then than it is now.
III. THE GOODWIN SANDS
Before we attempt to inquire what was the condition of the Goodwin Sands in the time of Caesar, it will be well to state the relevant facts which have been ascertained since exact observations began to be recorded.
‘The north-eastern part of the North Goodwin,’ says the author of the Channel Pilot,[2497] ‘dries in places 7 feet at low water; the South Goodwin not more than 4 or 5 feet at any part.’
The form of the sands is altered periodically by the tides. Beale Poste argued in 1857 that the Goodwin Sands were still growing, as ‘Kingsdown Mark, a pile ... built in the reign of Elizabeth to show the South Sand head, is ... of no use, the sand having now extended itself a mile further to the southward’. Moreover, he says, it was stated in the Report of the Commission of the Harbours of Refuge for 1845 that ‘the Brake Sand, a branch of the Goodwin Sands in the Small Downs, had moved bodily inwards towards the shore seven hundred yards within the last fifty years’. This, he maintains, can only mean that ‘a deposit has taken place on the inward side of the sand ... while the outward side has been eroded by the winds and tides’.[2498] In 1885 it was found that ‘the former Bunthead shoal’ had ‘entirely disappeared’,[2499] and that ‘the whole body of the South Calliper’ had ‘moved about a mile north-eastward’. Again, it was ascertained by ‘a re-survey of the Downs, Goodwin Sands, and adjacent coast’, executed in 1896, that since 1887 considerable changes had taken place. ‘The Goodwin Sand,’ we learn from this source, ‘has continued its general movement towards the coast, and the area of drying sand has largely increased.’[2500]
The results of borings carried out at various times in the Goodwin Sands have shown that blue clay, resting on chalk, was found at the depths of 7, 15, 57, and 78 feet.[2501] From these data Sir Charles Lyell[2502] concludes that the Goodwins ‘are a remnant of land, and not “a mere accumulation of sea sand”;’ and, referring to the destructive storm mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle[2503] as having occurred in 1099, he conjectures that ‘the last remains of an island, consisting, like Sheppey, of clay, may perhaps have been carried away about that time’.
Dr. Guest[2504] holds that in Caesar’s time the Goodwin Sands did not exist. He reminds us that, according to Somner,[2505] it was the opinion of ‘several men of judgement’ that they had not appeared until after the time of Earl Godwin, and, remarking that this was also the view of Sir Thomas More, he argues that ‘we may infer that such at that period was the opinion of educated men who had local knowledge’. Leland,[2506] he goes on to say, ‘attributed the decay of Sandwich to the Goodwin Sands, and as Sandwich was a flourishing port in the fourteenth century, we may infer that it was not till the fifteenth that the sands attained those formidable dimensions which produced so much mischief.’ Immediately north of Sandown Castle there is, he observes, a tract of land covered with low sand-hills, which, in Philipot’s map of Kent, are called the ‘smale downs’,[2507] and upon which the sea has long been encroaching. He accounts for the name given to the roadstead by assuming that it once formed part of the ‘smale downs’, and affirms his belief that ‘the flats round Sandwich once projected into the sea as a low ness or foreland,—probably divided into islands, of which Lomea [an island which John Twine asserted to have formerly existed about four miles from Thanet] was the easternmost’. He assumes that as Lomea is not mentioned in Domesday Book, it perished by some natural convulsion before the end of the eleventh century, and goes on to say that ‘After the destruction of this island, the Goodwin Sands may have been gradually accumulated, not necessarily on the site of the island, but near it, and the Downs just as gradually excavated’.[2508] Beale Poste[2509] also affirms that in 1098 ‘an island named Lomea was overflowed, on which occasion the sands are said to have been formed. This is mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis, and from him by Twine.... But Earl Goodwin (sic) died in ... 1053, and Domesday-book negatives that any extensive tract of land was overflowed and lost, in this direction.’
Now John Twine[2510] (or Twyne) merely says that he has read about Lomea in the works of ‘certain writers’. It was once, he says, a low fertile island, which was submerged in consequence of a great storm, and covered with sand, and it is now the Goodwin Sands. As for Giraldus Cambrensis, I have searched his writings diligently, and I can find no mention whatever therein either of Lomea[2511] or of the Goodwin Sands. The name ‘Downs’ is easily accounted for. ‘The DOWNS,’ says the author of the Channel Pilot,[2512] ‘in a general sense, implies the numerous banks lying immediately off the coast between the South and North Forelands ... that [anchorage] which is commonly ... known as the Downs is off the town of Deal between Walmer Castle and the northern part of the town,’ &c. I see no reason to doubt that the name of the roadstead is derived from the aforesaid banks and from the sand-dunes on the shore.
Somner,[2513] remarking that, according to the common opinion, Lomea was submerged in 1097, observes that there is no notice of such an island either in Domesday Book or in ‘any Author whether foreign or domestick, of any antiquity, that ever I could meet with’.
The late C. H. Pearson[2514] inferred from ‘the legend of their formation’[2515] that the sands were ‘first remarked about the end of the eleventh century’, and that they were ‘probably formed by bank-currents gradually depositing sand about a shoal’.