GENERAL TOPOGRAPHY
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from tidal invasion by the construction of sea-walls, whilst the western part remains an open estuary, bordered by salt marshes and filling with the tide to form what is in effect an inland sea.
   By far the best point for a general view is the top of the tower of Blakeney Church, which crowns the hill (itself more than 100 feet above sea-level), up which creeps the ancient, red-roofed seaport of much former prosperity. Beyond the shining muds, with their winding creeks and minor shipping towards the outlet, is the great shingle beach—a broad and toilsome causeway some 400 feet in width—and outside this the North Sea and no intervening land to the Pole. The spit of shingle is the outstanding topographical feature of this shore, and all else is subordinate to it. Under its lee an interrupted fringe of salt marshes has sprung up; whilst upon its surface, especially at its western end, blown sand from the shallow waters outside has drifted to form dunes. All this diversity of contour and relief, and much besides, is plainly visible from the church tower.
   History relates nothing of the origin of the great beach, except that it has tended intermittently to push forward its nonattached western end. The result of the last hundred years seems to show that Blakeney Point has about reached the length of its tether; that whatever “records” it may have “ broken ” in the advance of its growing point in ancient times, there is little likelihood of its ever overlapping Stiffkey and Wells, as it has overlapped Cley, Blakeney, and Morston. Geologically, Blakeney Point has reached maturity. Shingle, obedient to the currents, still drifts along its seaward front from east to west, but these supplies for twenty years or more have tended rather to accumulate at and widen the distal end than to project it farther from its base. Quite lately new outer beaches have appeared overlapping the nose by several hundred yards; these in all probability will be driven inshore as were their predecessors of half a century ago.
   The natural and convenient point of departure for a visit to Blakeney Point is the village of Cley, four miles by road from the railway station at Holt. It is natural, because Cley lies just at the point where the River Glaven discharges into tidal waters; Cley is, in effect, the head of the estuary. It is