page_title: RSPB Minsmere
section_title: Before 1947
hierarchical_section_title: RSPB Minsmere / History / Before 1947
caption_attribution_description: English: Minsmere Beach A line of WW2 tank traps heads towards The Sluice.
context_page_description: RSPB Minsmere is a nature reserve owned and managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at Minsmere, Suffolk. The 1,000-hectare site has been managed by the RSPB since 1947 and covers areas of reed bed, lowland heath, acid grassland, wet grassland, woodland and shingle vegetation. It lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Suffolk Heritage Coast area. It is conserved as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area and Ramsar site.
  The nature reserve is managed primarily for bird conservation, particularly through control and improvement of wetland, heath and grassland habitats, with particular emphasis on encouraging nationally uncommon breeding species such as the bittern, stone-curlew, marsh harrier, nightjar and nightingale. The diversity of habitats has also led to a wide variety of other animals and plants being recorded on the site.
  Before becoming a nature reserve, the area was the site of an ancient abbey and a Tudor artillery battery.
context_section_description: In the Domesday Survey in 1086 Minsmere was known as Menesmara or Milsemere. It is recorded as having six households headed by freemen with one plough team. The manor, which was in the Hundred of Blythling, was held by Roger Bigot.
  Ranulf de Glanvill, King Henry II's Lord Chief Justice, founded a Premonstratensian abbey on the marshes at Minsmere in 1182. The area was embanked to protect the abbey from the sea and to reclaim farmland, but still suffered several years of severe flooding in the 14th century. The site was abandoned in 1363, and the stone from the buildings was used to rebuild Leiston Abbey at a new location 3.3 kilometres (2.1 mi) further inland. The remains of the abbey church, fish pond and other buildings can still be detected below ground, but the only visible structure is the ruined chapel of St Mary, built within the nave of the former church. The lower section of the chapel was built soon after the demolition of the abbey in 1363, and the brick upper parts are thought to have been added by former abbot John Green, who lived there as a hermit when he retired from his post in 1527. The site was abandoned in 1537 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the only further construction being a pillbox that was built inside the chapel during World War II. The ruins are a scheduled monument of national importance.
  Peat cutting took place at Minsmere from at least the 12th century, and a 1237 description of the coastline describes Minsmere as a port. In a survey of 1587, an early Tudor period artillery battery, constructed sometime after 1539 at Minsmere, was in ruins; the survey recommended that it be rebuilt. A coastguard station operated at Minsmere in the 1840s in an attempt to control smuggling along this stretch of the coast.
  In about 1780 a sandbank closed the mouth of the Minsmere River, creating a large freshwater wetland on its inland side. The reeds that grew there were cut for thatching, and access was improved by using sand from the higher alluvial areas to build tracks across the marshes. These marshes were enclosed and drained for agricultural use in 1812 and 1813, following the passing of the relevant Act in 1810, with the main sluice being built to control drainage to the sea. The New Cut, a canal south of the river, was built as part of the drainage works, joining the river again at the sea sluice. The canal was used to transport the thatch crop inland by barge, its bridges being built particularly high to enable the bulky cargo to pass beneath. The drainage was improved after 1846 using steam-powered pumps. These were made by Richard Garrett & Sons of the Leiston Iron Works.
  There were four windmill sites on the levels. The Eastbridge Windpump was a smock mill built in the mid-19th century, probably by the millwright Robert Martin of Beccles. It stood north of the New Cut. The mill worked a three throw pump with square pistons. The windpump was working until 1939 and collapsed in February 1977. The remains were rescued by the Suffolk Mills Group in July 1977 and the mill was rebuilt at the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket in the early 1980s. The Sea Wall Mill stood north of the New Cut but closer to the coast than the Eastbridge Windpump. It was a smock mill built in the early 19th century. The mill worked by wind until it was tailwinded in January 1935, breaking the windshaft and rendering the mill sail-less. The scoopwheel was subsequently worked by a Hupmobile petrol engine, and later by a diesel engine. The mill collapsed in the summer of 1976. A third smock mill stood south of the New Cut and seaward of the ruins of the chapel. Built by the millwright Collins of Melton, it was blown down in the 1920s and a Titt windpump was erected on the site to drive the scoopwheel. This windpump had sails 4.9 metres (16 ft) diameter. Another Titt windpump, with sails 7.6 metres (25 ft) diameter stood 1.6 km (a mile) south of this. Both Titt windpumps were standing in 1938.
  The levels were re-flooded during World War II to defend against invasion along the East Anglian coast. Military defe
caption: The beach with WW2 tank traps
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix S5700 S700", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix S5700 S700 Ver1.00", "Image DateTime": "2008:10:11 11:45:27", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "300", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4084", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5975", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/210", "EXIF FNumber": "34/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:10:11 11:45:27", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:10:11 11:45:27", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "77/10", "EXIF ApertureValue": "11/2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "41/5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "984", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "5376", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "5376", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}