Druridge Bay is a long bay on the North Sea in

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

, England, stretching from

Amble Amble is a town on the North Sea coast of Northumberland, England, at the mouth of the River Coquet; Coquet Island is visible from its beaches and harbour. In 2011, it had a population of 6,025. Etymology There are two suggested origins of ...

in the north to Cresswell in the south. Druridge Bay Country Park is situated on the bay, and part of the bay (the section near the farmstead of Druridge, in the centre of the bay) is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

. Coastal areas on the bay are set aside as

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

Wartime defences

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, defences were constructed around Druridge Bay as part of the anti-invasion preparations. The defences included scaffolding barriers and anti-tank blocks overlooked by pillboxes; behind these were

minefield A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

s and an anti-tank ditch. Between the hamlets of Druridge and Cresswell, anti-glider ditches were dug and there is an extant brick-built decoy control.

Proposed nuclear reactor

The bay was the focus of a long-running campaign against proposals to construct a

Pressurised Water Reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) is ...

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

station during the 1980s and for the large-scale extraction of sand from the area in the 1990s. The first campaign, along with changes in

UK Government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

policy on nuclear power, prevented the power station from being built: the plan was shelved in 1989. The land was retained by Nuclear Electric and in February 1996 was allocated to the

NDA NDA may stand for: Military * National Defence Academy (India), a military academy in India * National Defence Act, legislation for organizing and funding Canada's military * National Defense Academy of Japan, a military academy in Japan * Nig ...

BNFL British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) was a nuclear energy and fuels company owned by the UK Government. It was a manufacturer of nuclear fuel (notably MOX), ran reactors, generated and sold electricity, reprocessed and managed spent fuel (mainly ...

. In November 1996 the NDA/BNFL sold the land to farmers.

Proposed coal mine

Druridge Bay again became the focus for environmental concerns in late 2015, when a planning application was submitted by Banks Group for an open-cast mine extending to 360 hectares (900 acres) immediately to the west of the beach, for the extraction of 3 million tonnes of coal. Six weeks after the application was submitted the UK government announced that all coal-fired energy generation would cease by 2025. Over 1800 letters of objection were received. Northumberland County Council approved plans for the open-cast mine in July 2016. In September 2016, the plans were put on hold subject to a government inquiry. In March 2018, the proposal was formally rejected by the Communities Secretary

Sajid Javid Sajid Javid (; born 5 December 1969) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from June 2021 to July 2022, having previously served as Home Secretary from 2018 to 2019 and Chancellor of the Exchequer f ...

. The company behind the project said they were planning to formally challenge the decision in the High Court. In September 2020, the proposal was rejected again by the Secretary of State.

Wildlife

Northumberland Wildlife Trust Northumberland Wildlife Trust was established in 1971 (following a split from the ''Northumberland & Durham Trust'', established 1962) to help conserve and protect the wildlife of Northumberland, Newcastle upon Tyne and North Tyneside in the UK ...

purchased the

sand extraction Sand mining is the extraction of sand, mainly through an open pit (or sand pit) but sometimes mined from beaches and inland dunes or dredged from ocean and river beds. Sand is often used in manufacturing, for example as an abrasive or in concret ...

site from

RMC Group RMC Group plc (formerly "Ready Mixed Concrete Limited") was a ready mixed concrete, quarrying and concrete products company headquartered in Egham, United Kingdom. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE ...

in 2006. The shore is known for populations of birds including the

golden plover '' Pluvialis '' is a genus of plovers, a group of wading birds comprising four species that breed in the temperate or Arctic Northern Hemisphere. In breeding plumage, they all have largely black underparts, and golden or silvery upperparts. Th ...

and the

purple sandpiper The purple sandpiper (''Calidris maritima'') is a small shorebird in the sandpiper family Scolopacidae. This is a hardy sandpiper that breeds in the arctic and subarctic regions of Eurasia and North America and winters further south on the Atlant ...

. Druridge Bay is best known to birdwatchers for hosting, in 1998, the

Druridge Bay curlew The Druridge Bay curlew was a curlew that was present in Druridge Bay, Northumberland in May 1998, whose species identification proved to be controversial. The bird was identified by its finder, and most others who saw it, as a first-summer sle ...

, a controversial bird which was eventually accepted as the first record of a

slender-billed curlew The slender-billed curlew (''Numenius tenuirostris'') is a bird in the wader family Scolopacidae. Isotope analysis suggests the majority of the former population bred in the Kazakh Steppe despite a record from the Siberian swamps, and was migr ...

in Britain, although this identification is still disputed by some.

Naturism

Druridge Bay is also used by

naturists Naturism is a lifestyle of practising non-sexual social nudity in private and in public; the word also refers to the cultural movement which advocates and defends that lifestyle. Both may alternatively be called nudism. Though the two terms a ...

. The North East

Skinny Dip Nude swimming is the practice of swimming without clothing, whether in natural bodies of water or in swimming pools. A colloquial term for nude swimming is '' skinny-dipping''. In both British and American English, to swim means "to move throu ...

, first held in 2012, is an annual event to raise funds for

MIND The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

, the mental health charity. It is held around the time of the Autumn Equinox in late September each year.

Culture

Music

The Divine Comedy The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and ...

's 1994 album ''

Promenade An esplanade or promenade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The historical definition of ''esplanade'' was a large, open, level area outside fortress or city walls to provide cle ...

'' begins with a

field recording Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibra ...

of the waves breaking on the shore at Druridge Bay, recorded especially for the album by producer

Darren Allison Darren Allison (born May 1968, Ashington, Northumberland, England) is an English record producer, musician, and audio engineer, best known for his production work with artists such as Spiritualized,Kempster, Chris "Studio secrets of the stars ...

.Liner Notes by

- "A Secret History". Setanta Records SETCDL100

Gallery

Image:druridgenorthview.jpg, Looking north over Druridge Bay from Cresswell Image:druridgedunes2.jpg, Druridge Bay Image:druridgedunes.jpg, Druridge Bay File:Druridge anti-tank blocks.jpg, Old World War II anti-tank defences. Now buried by

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

and

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

References

Notes

General references

*{{cite book , last = Foot , first = William , title = Beaches, fields, streets, and hills ... the anti-invasion landscapes of England, 1940 , publisher = Council for British Archaeology , year = 2006 , isbn = 1-902771-53-2

External links

Northumberland County Council page on Druridge Bay

Youtube
- Tyne Tees News broadcast June 1990 mentioning plans to build nuclear power station Bays of Northumberland