Promenade - Megathread

[0bserver]

'Apparently' one of the options for Douglas Prom was building a new road on the site of the beach - it was costed at somewhere around £35m and included land reclamation and a sea wall. 

With hindsight that would have been better value! (If DOI didn't balls up the exchange rates like they did with the airport reclamation). 

[Two-lane]

1 hour ago, Asthehills said:

The sand level is several feet higher than it was 30 years ago, which then stops the wave breaking effect of the seawall which is designed with a shape to break the waves up, but which is now buried under the sand which comes right to the level of the prom.

That bit of curved concrete once had a purpose, but no longer.

[skins]

1 hour ago, Asthehills said:

We don’t need a new sea wall along there, we need to move all the sand so the wall that is already there can do what it was designed to do

Or at least give it a go before spending millions on what could be another unnecessary scheme 🤷‍♂️

[The Phantom]

31 minutes ago, Numbnuts said:

This wonderful construction designed and signed off by DOI . Outstanding really. I dont even think it lasted 3 months. And funny enough they have managed without ever since I think.

Which is interesting as it seems to be the opposite problem to Douglas i.e. there is less beach. 

Although personally I think that this was just a shoddy job and the stairs should have gone further down.  That section of Laxey beach the level has often been that low.   I remember when they put the footings in by the first pier probably 30 years ago and it was a similar level. 

[Happier diner]

10 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

That bit of curved concrete once had a purpose, but no longer.

It would hinder an invasion of lilliputions.

[quilp]

Interesting image and text taken from fb's nostalgia page...

 

[Numbnuts]

59 minutes ago, The Phantom said:

Which is interesting as it seems to be the opposite problem to Douglas i.e. there is less beach. 

Although personally I think that this was just a shoddy job and the stairs should have gone further down.  That section of Laxey beach the level has often been that low.   I remember when they put the footings in by the first pier probably 30 years ago and it was a similar level. 

Yes level as always been low. The point of the job done by DOI was to make access to the beach easier. But apart from it all literally falling apart at the first sign of storms as Roxanne says it didnt access anything really as you see by the bottom step. Your right , it was a shoddy job designed by a idiot and got what it deserved . 

[John Wright]

The beach level height in Douglas has varied over the last 150 years. There are pictures of the beach height in the 1870’s and 1920’s with stones, at promenade height.

The promenade hasn’t been raised, Just widened, in all that time.

There’s lots of suggestions that the beach height causes overtopping because it raises sea level. That’s not correct. The amount of water displaced is de minimis compared to the volume of the seas and oceans.

The change in shore level is natural, it’s cyclical, and yes, the type of beach, sand or stone, and how quickly it cycles are influenced by man, with piers, harbour walls, breakwaters and groynes. And that’s not just in the harbour area, it’s up the coast. It happens every seaside resort. 

The feeling from the early 1900’s to the 1990’s was that we could make a long term difference by use of groynes and other “sea defences”. The modern view is that we can’t do much.

Overtopping has been a constant for 150 years. You’ve seen the photos of Strand Street above. It was an annual event.

The bull nose profile of the sea wall should help reduce the power of the waves by focusing them back. If the bull nose is filled in it won’t.

But go look at the original Strand ( Sand ) Street bull nose. It’s in the lane behind the Prom Methodist Church and the Christian book shop. It’s several feet higher than the 1930’s sea wall. It wasn’t a promenade sea wall, but the back wall of buildings on the east of Sand Street that backed directly onto the shore, before the hotels and boarding houses were built, and a promenade put in during the 1870’s.

The panoramic view is about 1860. No prom. 

[kevster]

19 minutes ago, John Wright said:

the original Strand ( Sand ) Street

doesn't the name come from it once being the strandline - as in The Strand (Lomdon) and The House on the Strand (Daphne Du Maurier novel)

[John Wright]

12 minutes ago, kevster said:

doesn't the name come from it once being the strandline - as in The Strand (Lomdon) and The House on the Strand (Daphne Du Maurier novel)

It was called Sandside originally, then Sand Street.

Doesn't the name Senna have something to do with sand as well?  

The Sandside 1703. Manorial Roll.
The Sandside. 1818. 
R.C.I.P. Sandside, Sand Street.
Strand Street. 1833. Wood

(From Kneen's Placenames book)

[Two-lane]

58 minutes ago, John Wright said:

There’s lots of suggestions that the beach height causes overtopping because it raises sea level. That’s not correct.

The following video is interesting. Note that the video is concentrating on what happens when a beach is eroded away, but in the case of Douglas the beach has been allowed to form a revetment up to the level of the recurve - so the waves roll up the revetment and straight over into the road.

 

[Asthehills]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

There’s lots of suggestions that the beach height causes overtopping because it raises sea level. That’s not correct. The amount of water displaced is de minimis compared to the volume of the seas and oceans.

Lots of suggestions where?  I haven’t ever heard anyone say that or suggest it.

[Jarndyce]

33 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Doesn't the name Senna have something to do with sand?

Something more to do with pods, shurely?

[The Phantom]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

 

Seems less rocky/more sandy

[John Wright]

30 minutes ago, Asthehills said:

Lots of suggestions where?  I haven’t ever heard anyone say that or suggest it.

On here, over the years.