Another brick in the wall as sea defence is restored
The gaping sinkhole that appeared on the A841 Whiting Bay Road early last month has been repaired after remedial works on the sea defence wall that underpinned it were completed.
The damage on the section of road opposite the Cooper Angus Caravan Park came about after a particularly violent storm with high tides on Tuesday April 3 breached the sea defences and caused the road to collapse.
The sandstone wall which is at least 110 years old, according to an image at the Arran Heritage Museum dating to 1908, has been repaired using as many of the original large boulders as possible. Whiting Bay resident Jim Arnold said: ‘I took these pictures to add to the museum’s photo archive.
‘They were taken from the water about noon on Monday April 30, with about an hour and a quarter still to go to full tide, a spring tide, 3.2 metres above chart datum. It can go higher than this, of course, and can be made worse by a strong southerly wind after heavy rain. You can gain an idea of what attack the wall can be under.
‘You can see from the photographs that a serious and successful attempt has been made to rebuild the breaches in the wall by overlapping the blocks of sandstone. I don’t think that would be easy, but it retains the style of the wall and is to be commended,’ Mr Arnold added.
The damage to the wall and road above it was an eerie reminder of a massive storm in January 1991 when a large section of the wall collapsed and caused the entire village of Whiting Bay to be inaccessible by car.
From one side of the village to the other, the entire road was flooded and strewn with boulders and sea debris, including rental boats. After the storm ended and the water had subsided, the sea wall was repaired and gabions built near the Coffee Pot, County Carpets and the local school to protect against further damage.