One small village, wasn’t always quite as small, with huge parts of the area being lost to the encroaching sea
Once a thriving port city Dunwich, in Suffolk, is now a small coastal town, now known to many as the ‘lost city of Dunwich’, or ‘Britain’s Atlantis’.
Dunwich was a hub of international trade in the medieval period, even rivalling London, but over the centuries since coastal erosion and storm damage has seen much of the former city’s buildings and land be swept away by the sea.
The first recorded major damage occurred on January 1, 1286, when a storm surge reached the edge of the town, destroying several buildings. Prior to this much of the damage sustained had been confined to the harbour.
Over the centuries, the town has continued to lose buildings and land to sea. One of the most recent losses was All Saint’s Church, the last of Dunwich’s ancient churches, which fell into the sea sometime between 1911 and 1922, with the cliff’s edge having eroded to the church in 1904.
By 2022, only one gravestone remained, precariously close to the cliff’s edge. This wasn’t the town’s first church to be lost, with Dunwich believed to have had at least 13 churches and priories throughout its history.
Just one still stands, St James, built in 1832 after residents were unable to afford the continued upkeep of All Saints. The ruins of one Franciscan priory, Greyfriars can still be seen on the cliffside, which is only growing closer and closer.
Though local legend had claimed that much of the city still stood, just under the sea, it wasn’t until 1972, when local marine archaeologist and diver Stuart Bacon discovered the tower of All Saints during a rare clear day, that there was proof of this.
A later dive also uncovered the ruins of another church, St Peter’s, which fell into the sea between 1688 and 1697.
Then in 2008, a team of marine archaeologists used sonar during a dive and were able to locate a number of different sites including a monastery, and several churches. These were discovered right where a Tudor-era map had placed them.
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