The Town the Sea Ate: How Dunwich Vanished Beneath the North Sea

In the 1200s, Dunwich in Suffolk was one of the important ports of medieval England: eight churches, two friaries, a busy harbour, and two Members of Parliament. Today it is a village of a couple of hundred people, and most of the old town lies under the North Sea. What really destroyed Dunwich? We follow the great storms of 1286 to 1362, the harbour that choked with shingle, the "rotten borough" that kept its two MPs until 1832, the last church to fall off the cliff, the legend of bells beneath the waves, and the sonar survey that found the ruins on the seabed. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:32 The Lost Capital 1:58 The Storms 3:14 The Slow Retreat 4:23 The Rotten Borough 5:33 The Last Church 6:36 Bells Beneath the Waves 8:06 Dunwich Today SOURCES • University of Southampton, "Secret streets of Britain's Atlantis are revealed" (9 May 2013) and "New survey to reveal Britain's Atlantis" (15 January 2008) • BBC Travel, "Dunwich: The British town lost to the sea" (2022) • The History of Parliament: Dunwich constituency • T. H. B. Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (1816) • Dunwich Museum (dunwichmuseum.org.uk); Dunwich Greyfriars Trust; Historic England list entry 1006039 (Greyfriars) • Wikipedia: Dunwich; Dunwich (UK Parliament constituency); Greyfriars, Dunwich; South England flood of February 1287 IMAGE CREDITS Photographs and historical images, all via Wikimedia Commons (used under their licences; CC BY-SA images remain under CC BY-SA): • Adrian Cable (CC BY-SA 2.0): Church Street, Dunwich (Geograph 1448831) • Arjen Bax (CC BY-SA 2.0): The gate to Grayfriars Priory (Geograph 5083221) • Bill Harrison (CC BY-SA 2.0): Cottages, High Street, Dunwich (Geograph 7961168); Cottages, St James' Street, Dunwich (Geograph 7961148); Remains of Greyfriars Monastery, Dunwich (Geograph 7961162); St James' Church, Dunwich (Geograph 7962205) • Colin Park (CC BY-SA 2.0): Dunwich - The last part of All Saints Church, re-constructed in churchyard of St James Church (Geograph 5242690); Ruin of Leper Chapel at Dunwich (Geograph 5242688) • Cud05 (CC BY-SA 2.0): Gravestone of Jacob Forster (Geograph 4881743) • F. L. B. Griggs (Public domain): All Saints Church, Dunwich - line drawing by F.L.B. Griggs • Geographer (CC BY-SA 2.0): Dingle Marshes, Dunwich (Geograph 6686057); Dunwich Heath ^ North Sea (Geograph 3397724) • J. M. W. Turner (Public domain): Dunwich, Suffolk by Joseph Mallord William Turner • Malcolm Neal (CC BY-SA 2.0): Dunwich beach and cliffs (Geograph 6103567) • Matt Brown (CC BY 2.0): Dunwich Museum 2024-07-22 • Michael Garlick (CC BY-SA 2.0): Dunwich Beach, Water's edge (Geograph 7920515); Dunwich Beach, rowing boats (Geograph 7920518); Dunwich beach from the coastal footpath (Geograph 7920488); Dunwich, Cliff Fall Warning Notice (Geograph 7919942); Dunwich, North west buttress of the tower of All Saints Church (Geograph 7919973); Dunwich, The last grave from the medieval church of All Saints (Geograph 7920467); Dunwich, The mid c11th ruined chancel and apse of the Leper Hospital of St. James (Geograph 7919876) • Neil Theasby (CC BY-SA 2.0): Ruins of the Franciscan friary in Dunwich (Geograph 5895044) • Ordnance Survey (Public domain): Map of Suffolk OS Map name 040-SW, Ordnance Survey, 1881-1893 • originalpickaxe (CC BY 3.0): Dunwich beach , Suffolk , August 2013 - panoramio • Peter Evans (CC BY-SA 2.0): Big sky over the Suffolk coast (Geograph 7185355) • Peter Turner (CC BY-SA 2.0): Across Dunwich marshes (Geograph 5069817) • Simon Mortimer (CC BY-SA 2.0): Dunwich Beach, looking north towards Walberswick and Southwold (Geograph 8283756); The beach and cliffs at Dunwich (Geograph 7966070) • The Royal History of Eastern England. James Macdonald & Co, 1873. (Public domain): Dunwich Priory N. E. View 1871 Royal History of Eastern England 1873 Book Print • Unknown author (Public domain): All Saints’ Church, on the Dunwich coast, ca. 1919; Group in front of All Saints’ in Dunwich, ca. 1904; Hand-drawn map of Dunwich; Ruins of All Saints’ Church, Dunwich, ca. 1910 • Walter Daniel Batley (Public domain): Dunwich Church from the Beach Images marked "Illustration" on screen are original artwork created for this video and are not historical photographs or survey images. Thumbnail: original illustration created for this video. Narration and music are original to this video. Parts of the Dunwich cliffs are unstable. If you visit, keep away from the cliff edge and follow the warning signs. Subscribe to Hidden Britannia for documentary stories about Britain's lost villages, vanished places and hidden history. #Dunwich #Suffolk #BritishHistory