{"id":1916928,"date":"2026-05-04T10:54:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T07:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1916928"},"modified":"2026-05-04T10:54:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T07:54:41","slug":"how-a-hurricane-created-a-precious-saltmarsh-in-somerset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1916928","title":{"rendered":"How a hurricane created a ‘precious saltmarsh’ in Somerset"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/55f7\/live\/9482b710-47a0-11f1-970b-c9a1b7950074.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
This year marks 30 years since Porlock’s salt marsh was created<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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This year marks 30 years since a hurricane created a salt marsh near a small coastal village.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1996, Hurricane Lili caused a storm to move from the Atlantic to Porlock Bay, where it battered the shore, changing the appearance and nature of the coast itself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Old stone walls near the shoreline were flattened, while the Exmoor bay’s shingle ridge was breached and moved inland by around 90 metres, creating a salt marsh which was left to its natural course.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Nigel Hester, who was the National Trust countryside manager at the time, said: “The advice was we must start thinking about climate change and how our coastline might change in the future. We wanted to work with natural processes.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Jeff<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Jeff Cox said there had been pressure to restore the area before it became established as a salt marsh<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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“There was a great pressure to restore the area. I think people worried it would stay a muddy mess but soon vegetation started to appear and it became established as a salt marsh,” Hester added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A new exhibition has now opened in Porlock museum outlining the 30-year process to create the marshes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It became a national symbol of how we might manage coastlines in the future,” Hester said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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How a hurricane created a ‘precious saltmarsh’<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Porlock historian Jeff Cox, who is putting on the exhibition, said Porlock Weir is the longest natural barrier of its kind in the whole of the west coast of Britain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“The fact this really was a test case for environmental policies, can we defend against rising sea levels and increased storms?” Cox added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“The idea of the exhibition is to try to make people more aware of what a precious and significant environment this is.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The exhibition is at Dovory Manor Museum in Porlock until October.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Follow BBC Somerset on <\/i>Facebook<\/i> and <\/i>X<\/i>. Send your story ideas to us on email or via <\/i>WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c5y74l61j29o”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/55f7\/live\/9482b710-47a0-11f1-970b-c9a1b7950074.jpg”] BBC This year marks 30 years since Porlock’s salt marsh was created This year marks 30 years since a hurricane created a salt marsh near a small coastal village. In 1996, Hurricane Lili caused a storm to move from the Atlantic to Porlock Bay, where it battered the shore, changing the appearance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-1916928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1916928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1916928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1916928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1916928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}