Pick your Nose

A terrible thing has happened to a local landmark.

I have spoken before about the nearby local public area known as Little Switzerland. This is a large former chalk quarry in the shadow of the north bank tower of the Humber Bridge. In conjunction with the accommodation of visitors coming to see the engineering marvel that stretches the River Humber, even after being relegated some way down the rankings of the world's longest single span, the derelict workings were landscaped and made fully accessible for recreation as a Country Park.

The configuration of the park is like a figure of eight or jokingly, a zero with a belt on. The northern side is in a steep tree lined bank running up to the main road. The western edge sweeps around in a more precipitous green algae covered chalk cliff below a large office park. To the east is a further face of soil and rock partly under the suspended roadway of the Bridge itself. The south side is hemmed in by the parallel course of the main railway link to Hull and the very busy A63 dual carriageway.

Most visitors approach from the river foreshore through two underpasses corresponding to the main transport axis but there is stepped access of a more challenging nature up the steeper slopes.

The first sight on entering by the most popular route is a large, about 60 feet high, bright white chalk promontory. In profile it is a bit like a scaled down Sphinx with forehead, nasal protusion and sweeping overhang of a chin. The shape is topped with a sort of mud and vegetation toupee.

The public pathway formed from railway sleepers, butted up close, passes just under the miniature wannabee Sphinx. An information board attesting to the  origins of the minerals forming the cliff from the bed of a pre-prehistoric tropical ocean does mean that visitors dwell and linger in this position. Well, I mean that the parents and grandparents do and read the legend aloud but their offspring and charges have long since lost interest and wandered off to non-educational and therefore infinitely more interesting attractions.

In the summer months I have seen groups climbing and abseiling up and down the soft chalk face in a well supervised and safe manner. At other times mischievous youths have clambered up and got stuck. Their descent has been involuntary and not in good stlye.  I have not been up that part myself but suspect that it actually feels much higher than it looks from ground level.

On occasion, following heavy rain or frost and snow there has been a collection of small rocks intermingled with bits of vegetation that have worked loose from the precipice and rolled down to nestle at the foot of the information display board. These are generally insignificant and silent expulsions which have had no influence of the striking profile of the feature. I expect that they were also unwitnessed by human eyes nor heard by human ears.

However, following the inclement weather through December and early 2013 the chalk has been assaulted by rain, snow and wind with the inevitable consequence that the whole of the bulbous projection has collapsed to the ground.

It is a sorry but also awesome sight. The lower slopes are strewn with large bright white and flint embedded boulders. It is the scene of a rock fall avalanche. It will not have been a silent event but I was not aware either by rumour, hearsay or an official announcement that something of this magnitude had happened.

I approached the largest piece of fallen debris. The chalk on the surface was almost powdery soft and saturated with moisture. It is probably the case that the cliff face simply dissolved in the elements and lost all semblance of structural form. A few amateur geologists were picking through the rocks. Their sentiment was short lived in anticipation of the collapse exposing something of interest from the entombment from primordial times.

It has been a drastic event. If the same had happened to a landmark building then an Appeal and campaign would already be well under way. However, being a natural landform its failure and demise is put down to erosion and an Act of God.

A walk into the Country Park will never be the same again. When the children were younger and the dogs active we were up there just about on a daily basis and that headland was special to us. At different angles and in varying shades of light, with our eyes screwed up in a squint or wide open in amazement it often took on the form of an enigmatic creature, perhaps a lion or a cat or a human head with a good strong nose which, unlike the Sphinx, had until recent events been its best feature.