I met a couple of friends at Walton on the Naze, to carry out a plan we'd been talking about for a while, to have a look at the Naze Tower. The Naze is a high (by Essex standards) spit that projects north of the seaside town of Walton, and guards the entrance to the Walton Backwaters (scene of Arthur Ransom's 'Secret Water'). I have seen the tower a lot of times before, in that it was built by Trinity House to be visible from miles out to sea, back in 1720, and I have often gazed at it from afar as we sailed, or flogged, or drifted, up, down or across the Thames estuary. The lower reaches of the Thames are singularly devoid of any landmarks visible from offshore, and in the days before GPS and echo-sounders the tower must have been even more useful than it still is. I had even been once years ago with the Systems Administrator and walked around the outside of it, but nowadays you can go inside and climb to the top to admire the views, and it houses a tearoom and a series of art exhibitions, plus displays about the history of the tower itself and the geology of the Naze.
The Naze is of great interest to geologists, consisting of red sandstone overlying London clay. The red sandstone is extremely rich in fossils, while the water that flows underground over the clay continually erodes the base of the cliff, and along with the action of the sea causes repeated slumps and rockfalls. This has the effect of exposing a continuous supply of fresh fossils, but means that the Naze is gradually disappearing. The first phase of a cliff base walk was completed earlier this year, made of great lumps of imported granite, which are intended to trap the fallen material behind them until the cliff forms a sustainable slope.
The inside of the tower turns out to be really good. There is a narrow spiral staircase all the way to the top, with a few windows on the way up, which give a disconcerting effect unless you are pretty familiar with the area as each faces a different way, so it takes a while to place each new view. It was a slightly drizzly morning, so when we got to the top we couldn't see the Orford lighthouse, but we had a good look at the cranes of Felixstowe, the pier at Walton, the newish Gunfleet windfarm, and the channels of the Backwaters meandering mysteriously away. The artworks were a mixed lot, some good, some twee, some (to my eye) rather excruciatingly bad. There were some small ceramic wall plaques shaped like fish, which probably fell just at the end of the twee scale, but they had a quirky charm, and I liked them, and there was some brightly coloured pottery in slightly idiosyncratic shapes by a famous (at least by East Anglian standards) potter. I already knew her work, and have a small jug made by her. It's domestic stuff, not Lucy Rie, and I don't know that the V&A are collecting it, but it's fun. There were some quite good photos as well, of beach huts, and waves, and scenes around Essex and Suffolk that we were challenged to identify, the thesis being that they looked as though they were of much more exotic places. I hadn't previously visualised Brightlingsea as Turkey, but with some imagination and a lurid sunset I suppose it could be.
Then we had coffee and cake outside, which were good, and walked down to the new walkway, and looked at the sandmartin nests in the cliffs, and debated how the sandmartins dig the tunnels, and walked further along the beach. I collected as many shells as I could carry, having forgotten to bring a bag, and a strange eroded fragment which is probably a piece of heavily sea-worn ceramic, otherwise it is a very weird stone. In places tree roots hang over the edge of the cliff, where it has crumbled under them, and there was one entire tree, its branches still caught up somehow, but it can't last up there much longer. It is not a cliff for walking too close to. There were a lot of cheerful dogs and cheerful owners, and it was very pleasant. Actually, you probably have to be brought up as a northern European to really appreciate walking along a featureless coastline in grey light and a suspicion of drizzle. I've seen similar scenes at Belgian seaside towns, but I'm not sure I could convince the average citizen of the Med that this was really nice.
Then we got back to our cars, and discovered that we had all collected parking tickets. We had all paid to park, but only for two hours, and because the place had turned out to be more interesting and absorbing than we'd expected we had gone twenty or twenty-five minutes over the time. We tried to be philosophical about it. The terms of parking were displayed, and if we wanted more than two hours we should have paid for it. I hate car parks where you have to decide in advance how long you are going to be, because you never know what is going to turn up or how long things are going to take. If you go to Flatford, for example, you pay a couple of quid to park but then that's it. You don't have to decide in advance if you can look at Willy Lott's cottage and grab some lunch in the National Trust cafe inside two hours, or if you'll need three. I suppose the council would say that it isn't fair that people who want to spend all day there should pay the same as dog owners who only want a quick half hour walk, but in Colchester (on those rare occassions when I go there) I use a car park that is pay on exit.
We should have guessed that the car park must be a little goldmine for the council, and patrolled regularly. The ticket said that it was part of a considerate parking initiative, but that's crap. Inconsiderate parking is when you block other people in, or there isn't room for everyone who needs to use the facility. At this car park there was room for another 200 cars, easy. I'll pay the fine, but it is a pyrrhic victory for the council. I didn't buy a ceramic fish, or a jug, so the local artists have lost out, and I've been left with a very sour taste in the mouth. It was my first visit, and the people running the tower were lovely. If the expedition had gone smoothly I might have turned into a regular visitor, and dragged other friends there. As it is I probably won't. There are other art galleries, and places to have tea, and to go for a walk without being charged to park at all, let alone having to worry in advance about exactly how long you are going to be. Displays along the new cliff walk say how important the Naze is to the tourist economy of Walton. Charging tourists a punitive pound a minute to park doesn't do your precarious tourist economy any good at all. And penalties disproportionate to the offence make people into worse citizens. The last time one of the council's potholes took out a tyre on my car I thought oh well, stuff happens, I should have been more careful, I'd rather they spent the money on repairing the roads. If it happens again I'll be looking to find out how I claim compensation because the bastards owe me.
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