The Bristol Channel

The Bristol Channel is an arm of the Celtic Sea - a land borderless arm of the Atlantic Ocean - situated between south Wales and the north coasts of the English counties of Devon and Somerset.

The Bristol Channel is a major, regional shipping route and holiday destination, which is home to several scenic, seaside resorts and major industrial cities and commercial, dockland facilities.

The Bristol Channel was the site of England's only recorded tsunami. There had been a previous tsunami during the Mesolithic Period on England and Scotland's east coast, resulting in Great Britain being separated from the rest of Europe, but the Stone Age witnesses at the time were in no position to record it.

Following the devastating earthquake of January 1607, in Portugal's capital city Lisbon, the Bristol Channel coast was hit by a twelve foot wave three hours after Lisbon's earthquake.

The resultant tsunami went on to cause extensive flooding in and around the Bristol Channel area and was believed to have killed over three thousand people and destroyed vast swathes of farm land, dwellings and livestock.

At seventy miles long and between five and forty three miles wide, the Bristol Channel is the United Kingdom's largest natural inlet, with a depth of between thirty to two hundred and forty feet and a two hundred and nineteen mile long, award winning coastline, which is the site of the U.K's highest and the world's second highest, tidal bore.

The channel is fed by eleven major British rivers including the rivers Severn, Avon, Taff, Usk and Wye all of which run into the three hundred and forty six, square mile River Severn Estuary situated at the eastern most edge of the channel.

The channel is synonomous for it's high tides and tidal surges which can lead to waves of over forty feet high that come crashing in on the tide at over eight miles an hour. These surges lead to the phenomena known as the Severn Bore, which sends waves surging along the River Severn, resulting in this river having the highest tidal bore in the United Kingdom and the second highest tidal bore in the world.

The channel is home to six islands, all of them uninhabited, including Skokholm, Steepholm ,Flatholm, Caldey Island, Lundy Island and Sully Island, all of which are protected, Heritage Coast havens for nesting gannets, guillimots, razorbills and puffins. The protected waters around these islands are also wildlife sanctuaries for many rare and unusual species of marine life.

At low tide the channel becomes one vast expanse of mudflats, which become a magnet for rare and unusual feeding, wading birds. The channel's coastline is also a wildlife haven for many rare plants, flowers and grasses.

The water of the channel also harbours several species of porpoise and dolphin as well as large numbers of porbeagle, blue shark and grey seals.

These waters also contain a wealth of fish species including pollock, whiting, bass, ling and conger eels, making the area popular with recreational shore and boat fishermen.

The waters are also stocked with large,supplies of crabs and cockles, resulting in a large, commercial shellfish industry in the area.

The Bristol Channel coastline is the site of some of the south west's most scenic landscapes which inturn host the five award winning, British Heritage Coasts of Wales' South Pembrokshire Coast and The Gower Peninsular and England's Exmoor, Bideford Bay and Hartland Point. This area also includes the three National Walking Trails of The Gower, the South West Coast and the Pembroke Coast.

The Bristol Channel is made up of several large bays and river estuaries, including Bideford Bay on England's north Devon coast, Bridgewater Bay on England's north Somerset coast, Swansea Bay and Carmarthen Bay on the south Wales coast and Cardiff Bay situated at the mouth of the River Severn's vast estuary.

The channel's northern coast situated along the south Wales coast is a heavily industrialised area that contains the ports of Swansea, Cardiff and Newport and oil refineries located at Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock. This high concentration of commercial shipping has led to the area being the site of at least twenty four known shipwrecks, of which ten still remain, as well as the three large oil spillages of the Esso Portsmouth which caused a small spillage and subsequent major fire in July 1960 at the mouth of Milford Haven Waterway.

The Christas Bitas which spilled four thousand tons of crude oil into water ten miles off the Pembroke coast in October 1978 and the Sea Empress which spilled seventy three thousand tons of crude oil into the channel, again at the mouth of the Milford Haven Waterway, in February 1996, causing the United Kingdom's third largest oil spillage and the world's twelth largest oil spillage, resulting in a year long clean up campaign which cost over one hundred and twenty million pounds.

The Bristol Channel is served by around forty working lighthouses along it's designated coastline between St Govan's Head in Pembrokshire and Harland Point in Devon at it's eastern most point and from Sand Point in Somerset and Lavernock Point in Monmouthshire at it's western most point. The area is also served by several lighthouses no longer used for navigation purposes, many of which have been turned into holiday guest houses.

The waters of the Bristol Channel are referred to as Lundy on British shipping lane maps, after the channel's largest island.

Large holiday resorts in the area include England's Bideford, Minehead, Burnham on Sea, Weston Supermare and Ilfracombe, pictured above, and Wales' Gower Peninsular, Barry Island, Penarth and Tenby.

The channel's three major cities are Swansea, Cardiff and Bristol.

SOME BRISTOL CHANNEL WEBSITES

Diving - www.bristolchanneldiving.co.uk

Angling - www.bristolchannelangling.co.uk

Yachting - www.bcya.org.uk

Port Authority - www.bristolport.co.uk

Severn Ferry – - www.severnlink.com

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