Dungeness () is a
headland
A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, John ...
on the coast of
Kent, England, formed largely of a
shingle beach
A shingle beach (also referred to as rocky beach or pebble beach) is a beach which is armoured with pebbles or small- to medium-sized cobbles (as opposed to fine sand). Typically, the stone composition may grade from characteristic sizes ranging ...
in the form of a
cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land,
Romney Marsh. Dungeness spans
Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, the hamlet of Dungeness, and an
ecological site at the same location. It lies within the
civil parish of
Lydd.
Etymology
Dungeness's name means "the headland at Denge", referring to nearby
Denge Marsh. The marsh is first mentioned in 774 as ''Dengemersc''. Its name may mean "marsh of the pasture district", from Old English ''denn *gē mersc'', or else "marsh with manured land", from Old English ''dyncge mersc''.
Nature
Ecology
Dungeness is one of the largest expanses of shingle in Europe. It is of international conservation importance for its
geomorphology
Geomorphology (from Ancient Greek: , ', "earth"; , ', "form"; and , ', "study") is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or n ...
, plant and invertebrate communities and bird life. This is recognised and protected mostly through its conservation designations as a
national nature reserve (NNR), a
Special Protection Area (SPA), a
Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and part of the
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...
(SSSI) of
Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye Bay.
There is a remarkable variety of wildlife living at Dungeness, with over 600 different types of plants: a third of all those found in Britain. It is one of the best places in Britain to find invertebrates such as moths, bees, beetles, and spiders; many of these are very rare, some found nowhere else in Britain.
The short-haired bumblebee, ''
Bombus subterraneus
The short-haired bumblebee (''Bombus subterraneus''), or short-haired humble-bee, is a species of bumblebee found in Eurasia, as well as in New Zealand, where it is an introduced species.
It lived in the British Isles among other parts of Europe ...
'', was last found in the UK in 1988 but has survived in New Zealand after being shipped there more than 100 years ago. After unsuccessful attempts to reintroduce the New Zealand bees at Dungeness in 2009–2010, the
Bumblebee Conservation Trust
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust is an organisation in the UK that makes efforts to monitor and conserve bumblebees and their habitat.
History
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust was established by Dave Goulson in 2006 with a grant of £49,900 from ...
,
Hymettus,
Natural England and the
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds teamed up with the Swedish government in a second attempt and introduced 51 of them in 2012 and 49 in 2013 to the Dungeness Reserve. This will be continued each year to ensure a successful integration.
The flooded gravel pits on Denge Beach, both
brackish and fresh water, provide an important refuge for many migratory and coastal bird species. The RSPB has a bird reserve there, and every year thousands of bird watchers visit the peninsula and its
bird observatory.
One of the most remarkable features of the site is an area known as "the patch" or, by anglers, as "the boil". The waste hot water from the
Dungeness nuclear power stations is pumped into the sea through two outfall pipes, enriching the biological productivity of the sea bed and attracting seabirds from miles around.
Beach fishing is popular at Dungeness, with the area being a nationally recognised
cod
Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...
fishing venue in the winter.
The Dungeness area will potentially be affected by plans to lengthen the runway of
Lydd Airport to accommodate larger passenger jets.
It has previously been reported that Dungeness had such low rainfall as to qualify as the only desert in the UK. However, a spokesperson for the Met Office refuted this in 2015.
Climate
The climate in Dungeness is mild and generally warm and temperate. There is significant rainfall throughout the year. The average annual temperature is . Precipitation averages annually. The
Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "
Cfb" (Marine West Coast Climate/
Oceanic climate
An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...
).
Buildings
Lighthouses
There have been seven
lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Lighthouses mar ...
s at Dungeness, five high and two low, with the fifth high one still fully operational today. At first, only a beacon was used to warn sailors, but this was replaced by a wooden lighthouse in 1615 which was tall. As the sea retreated, this had to be replaced in 1635 by a new lighthouse nearer to the water's edge known as Lamplough's Tower which was around 110 ft high.
As more shingle was thrown up, a new and more up-to-date lighthouse was built near the sea in 1792 by Samuel Wyatt. This lighthouse was high and of the same design as the third
Eddystone Lighthouse. From the mid-19th century, it was painted black with a white band to make it more visible in daylight; similar colours have featured on the subsequent lighthouses here.
This lighthouse was demolished in 1904, but the lighthouse keepers' accommodation, built in a circle around the base of the tower, still exists.
In 1901 building of the fourth lighthouse, the High Light Tower, started. It was first lit on 31 March 1904 and still stands today. It is no longer in use as a lighthouse but is open as a visitor attraction. It is a circular brick structure, high and in diameter at ground level. It has 169 steps and gives visitors a good view of the shingle beach.
As the sea receded further, and after building the nuclear power station which obscured the light of the 1904 lighthouse, a fifth lighthouse,
Dungeness Lighthouse
Dungeness Lighthouse on the Dungeness Headland started operation on 20 November 1961. Its construction was prompted by the building of Dungeness nuclear power station, which obscured the light of its predecessor (dating from 1904) which, thoug ...
was built.
Power stations
There are two
nuclear power stations at Dungeness, identified as "A" and "B", the first built in 1965 and the second in 1983. They are within a wildlife sanctuary designated a
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...
, and birds flourish in the warmer water created by the station's outflow.
The older power station closed on 31 December 2006, while the current owner
EDF Energy announced in June 2021 that the newer station would not resume operations, which had halted in September 2018, and would move into the defuelling phase with immediate effect.
There is a public visitors centre, and tours of "B" station are available. Tours were stopped in 2001, and the visitor centre subsequently closed in 2003, in the wake of the
September 11 attacks. EDF opened a new visitor centre in 2013 and resumed tours, albeit with new security procedures which have to be cleared some weeks in advance of visits.
The hamlet
In addition to the power station and lighthouse, there is a collection of dwellings. Most are wooden weatherboard beach houses, but there are also around 30 houses converted from old railway coaches in the 1920s.
These houses are owned and occupied by fishermen whose boats lie on the beach. Closer to the main road, there is a large building – comprising five conjoined homes – previously tenanted by coastguards. There are more houses around the site of the power stations. There are two public houses: the Britannia and the Pilot, the latter being served by
the Pilot Inn railway station
The Pilot Inn railway station was a station on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway in Kent, England.
Opened on 24 May 1928, this station was a temporary terminus whilst construction of the remaining section of track to Dungeness continued. ...
from 1928 to 1977. Fresh seafood can be purchased from several outlets across the shingle.
A notable house is
Prospect Cottage
Prospect Cottage is a house on the coast in Dungeness (headland), Dungeness, Kent. Originally a Victorian fisherman's hut, the house was purchased by director and artist Derek Jarman in 1987, and was his home until his death in 1994.
Jarman bou ...
, formerly owned by the late artist and film director
Derek Jarman. The cottage is painted black, with a poem, part of
John Donne
John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...
's "
The Sunne Rising
"The Sun Rising" (also known as "The Sunne Rising") is a thirty-line poem with three stanzas published in 1633 by poet John Donne
John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born i ...
", written on one side in black lettering. The garden, reflecting the bleak, windswept landscape of the peninsula, is made of pebbles, driftwood, scrap metal and a few hardy plants.
Transport
Dungeness is accessible by two roads, one along the coast from
New Romney
New Romney is a market town in Kent, England, on the edge of Romney Marsh, an area of flat, rich agricultural land reclaimed from the sea after the harbour began to silt up. New Romney, one of the original Cinque Ports, was once a sea port, w ...
to the north, and another from
Lydd to the north-west. Both roads converge near the Pilot public house, from where a single road runs a mile (1.6 km) south to the tip of Dungeness.
Dungeness is also served by the
Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway
The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway (RH&DR) is a gauge light railway in Kent, England, operating steam and internal combustion locomotives. The line runs from the Cinque Port of Hythe via Dymchurch, St. Mary's Bay, New Romney and Romney ...
, a gauge
light railway that covers the distance from
Hythe
Hythe, from Anglo-Saxon ''hȳð'', may refer to a landing-place, port or haven, either as an element in a toponym, such as Rotherhithe in London, or to:
Places Australia
* Hythe, Tasmania
Canada
*Hythe, Alberta, a village in Canada
England
* T ...
. The line, which had opened to New Romney in 1927, was extended to
Dungeness station a year later. It still provides a service for tourists.
The peninsula has a second, standard gauge railway, but this is now truncated at Lydd and only used to carry waste from the power stations. It formerly linked Dungeness (and, via a separate branch, New Romney) to a junction with the
Marshlink Line at
Appledore Appledore may refer to:
Places England
* Appledore, Kent
** Appledore (Kent) railway station
* Appledore, Mid Devon, near Tiverton
* Appledore, Torridge, North Devon, near Bideford U.S.A.
* Appledore Island, off the coast of Maine In fiction
* App ...
. The Dungeness section was closed to passengers on 4 July 1937 and it was truncated to Lydd on 6 March 1967.
Lydd Airport, sometimes known as London Ashford Airport, lies just to the north-west of Dungeness. Despite opposition, largely due to its proximity to the unique landscape of Dungeness, the airport received permission in 2014 to extend its runway to allow it to handle fully loaded aircraft up to the size of a
Boeing 737 or
Airbus A319.
Defence uses
The beach and marshes have been used for military training and include marked "danger areas". In World War I Lydd Camp was here.
Denge, a former
Royal Air Force site at the northern edge of the Dungeness headland, is the site of a set of
acoustic mirrors, known as the "Listening Ears". Built between 1928 and 1930, the three massive concrete structures formed an experimental
early warning system that aimed to detect invading aircraft by focusing
sound wave
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
s. The site was chosen as being one of the quietest in Britain. Their different forms are evidence of their experimental nature; they were not particularly effective and were abandoned when
radar became available. The site is now managed by the
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
In 1944, some of the world's first underwater oil pipelines were laid between Dungeness and France in
Operation Pluto
Operation Pluto (Pipeline Under the Ocean or Pipeline Underwater Transportation of Oil, also written Operation PLUTO) was an operation by British engineers, oil companies and the British Armed Forces to construct submarine oil pipelines un ...
. The lines from Dungeness were part of a network called "Dumbo" and ran to
Ambleteuse in France.
Media appearances
Dungeness appears quite often in
music videos, album covers and adverts. It featured on the cover of
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
's 1981 album ''
A Collection of Great Dance Songs''.
British band The
Soup Dragons
Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, milk, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ...
shot the videos for their top 5 1990 hit '"I'm Free", and follow-up top 20 1991 hit "Mother Universe" on Dungeness; and there have also been several photo shoots by the band in the area.
The shingle beach and fishermen's shacks feature extensively in the
Lighthouse Family promotional video for their 1998 song "
High
High may refer to:
Science and technology
* Height
* High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area
* High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory
* High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift ...
".
The
acoustic mirror at Dungeness is featured on the cover of the album ''Ether Song'' by the British indie band
Turin Brakes. Dungeness appears on the covers of albums as diverse as ''So much for the city'' by
The Thrills and ''Aled'' by
Aled Jones.
The Prodigy
The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music band formed in Braintree, Essex, in 1990 by producer, keyboard player and songwriter Liam Howlett. The original line-up also featured dancer and singer Keith Flint and dancer and occasional l ...
's single "
Invaders Must Die
''Invaders Must Die'' is the fifth studio album by English electronic dance music group The Prodigy. The album was released on 23 February 2009 on the band's new record label Take Me to the Hospital, and was distributed by Cooking Vinyl. Alt ...
" video was filmed here and shows both the acoustic mirrors and the lighthouse. In 2011, the music video for the song Walk the River by British band
Guillemots was filmed on the headland. In 2012,
Nicki Minaj's single
Freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
was filmed on the beach and with the acoustic mirrors. The music video for Lithuanian DJ
Ten Walls
Marijus Adomaitis (born 19 January 1983), better known by his stage names Ten Walls or Mario Basanov, is a Lithuanian producer who is best known for his 2014 single "Walking with Elephants", which peaked at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart.
In Jun ...
' hit single ''
Walking With Elephants
"Walking with Elephants" is a song by Lithuanian producer Ten Walls. It was released as a digital download on 13 April 2014 by German record label BOSO and on 28 April 2014 in the United Kingdom. The song peaked to number 6 on the UK Singles Ch ...
'' was shot on the headland and in the surrounding sea and featured many of the areas prominent landmarks. In 2016, The Wholls also filmed the music video for their single "X21". In 2020, the music video for
Nothing But Thieves's single Impossible was partly filmed on the beach.
Athlete
An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance.
Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-devel ...
have a song on the album ''Vehicles and Animals'' called "Dungeness" which is about the area.
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
Sam Duckworth (born 1986) is an English musician who performs as Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. He is also sometimes referred to as ''Get Cape'', ''Cape'', ''GCWCF'' and ''Slam Dunkworth'' (the latter title apparently first coined by Emmy the Great ...
mentions Dungeness and the lighthouse in his song "Lighthouse Keeper". The Kent-based
hardcore punk band November Coming Fire released a 2006 album entitled ''Dungeness'', featuring a track called "Powerstation" which included a recording of waves on the beach, and Scottish folk band
Trembling Bells
Trembling Bells were a Scottish folk rock group formed in 2008 by drummer Alex Neilson, a musician with a history of free and improvised playing with several artists. Based in Glasgow, the group released three albums through Honest Jon's Records ...
named their album ''Dungeness'' too.
In television, the Dungeness landscape, the lighthouse and the power station have been used on digital channel
E4 at the beginning and end of
advertising breaks. It was used as a backdrop for the ITV drama ''The Poison Tree''. It featured in an episode of the BBC detective serial ''
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries'' and in March 2007 was the setting for a major part of an ''
EastEnders
''EastEnders'' is a Television in the United Kingdom, British soap opera created by Julia Smith (producer), Julia Smith and Tony Holland which has been broadcast on BBC One since February 1985. Set in the fictional borough of Walford in the Ea ...
'' special. The BBC filmed episodes of ''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
'' in Dungeness during the 1970s. The 1981 fantasy film ''
Time Bandits'' shot its "Time of Legends" sequence on the beach, and Dungeness was used to film a scene in
Danny Boyle's ''
Trance''.
Much of the
Michael Winterbottom's 1998 film ''
I Want You'' was set in and around Dungeness: the lead character's home was one of the wooden beach huts. The
Derek Jarman avant-garde 1990 film ''
The Garden'' was set and filmed in Dungeness.
See also
*
Battle of Dungeness
The naval Battle of Dungeness took place on 30 November 1652 (10 December in the Gregorian calendar) during the First Anglo-Dutch War near the cape of Dungeness in Kent.
Background
In September 1652 the government of the Commonwealth of En ...
, a 1652 battle of the
First Anglo-Dutch War
*
Cuspate foreland
*
Dungeness, Washington – named after Dungeness
*
Dungeness crab
The Dungeness crab (''Metacarcinus magister'') is a species of crab inhabiting eelgrass beds and water bottoms along the west coast of North America. It typically grows to across the carapace and is a popular seafood. Its common name comes from ...
– named after Dungeness, Washington
*
Punta Dúngeness
Punta Dúngeness is a headland at the eastern entrance of the Strait of Magellan on its north shore, opposite Cabo del Espiritu Santo in Tierra del Fuego. West of the Punta Dungeness lies the Bahía Posesión. Punta Dungeness marks the border b ...
in the
Strait of Magellan
The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pass ...
– named after Dungeness
References
External links
dungeness-nnr.co.uk - Official site for Dungeness National Nature ReserveDungeness lighthouse
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dungeness (Headland)
Geography of Kent
Headlands of Kent
Villages in Kent
Nature Conservation Review sites
Special Areas of Conservation in England
Populated coastal places in Kent
Bird observatories in England
Beaches of Kent
Lydd