Hallsands: A Village Betrayed

Steve Melia

Reading about Hallsands made me think of the villages of Imber and Tyneham. Imber is the deserted village in the middle of Salisbury Plain which is used by the army to train soldiers for urban warfare. On one day a year the general public is allowed in to tend to the church and to gawp at the ruined houses now used for target practice. It's near where I grew up and I remember picking my way through the ghostly site on one of the open days.

In 1943 the government told its population their isolated village was needed in the run up to D-Day and gave them days to leave. At the time they were told they would be able to return at the end of the war. In fact, this was never allowed: The location was too perfect for the MOD. Something similar happened in Tyneham in Dorset. In the last ten years both villages have featured in TV programmes and books (in Tyneham's case "The Village That Died for England" was a bestseller).

The case of Hallsands is not dissimilar, though it belongs to an earlier war. In the years leading up to the First World War huge quantities of shingle required for the contruction of naval facilities at Plymouth were dredged from the shoreline near Hallsands. As the beach began to fall away the village was exposed to the sea and in the course of a decade and a half was destroyed by winter storms. Unsurprisingly, the dredging contractors denied all responsibility. Compensation to the homeless villagers was eventually granted by the government (by now in possession of shiny new docks at Plymouth) but it came too little, too late.

I wonder about our renewed interest in Imber and Tyneham and Hallsands. I think a part of it is curiosity for a lost age when whole populations were expected to surrender their homes to aid the war effort. And lied to when promised a speedy a return. And fobbed off by inadequate compensation. You have to hope it couldn't happen now.