The Doom Bar (previously known as Dunbar sands, Dune-bar, and similar names) is a sandbar at the mouth of the estuary of the River Camel, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean on the north coast of Cornwall, England. Like two other permanent sandbanks further up the estuary, the Doom Bar is composed mainly of marine sand that is continually being carried up from the seabed. More than 60 per cent of the sand is derived from marine shells, making it an important source of agricultural lime, which has been collected for hundreds of years; an estimated 10 million tons of sand or more has been removed from the estuary since the early nineteenth century, mainly by dredging.
The estuary mouth, exposed to the Atlantic Ocean, is a highly dynamic environment, and the sands have been prone to dramatic shifts during storms. According to tradition, the Doom Bar formed in the reign of Henry VIII, damaging the prosperity of the port of Padstow a mile up the estuary.
Until the twentieth century, access to Padstow's harbour was via a narrow channel between the Doom Bar and the cliffs at Stepper Point, a difficult passage for sailing ships to navigate, especially in north-westerly gales when the cliffs would cut off the wind. Many ships were wrecked on the Doom Bar, despite the installation of mooring rings and capstans on the cliffs and quarrying away part of Stepper Point to improve the wind. In the early twentieth century, the main channel moved away from the cliffs, and continued dredging has made it much safer for boats, but deaths have occurred on the bar as recently as May 2020.
A Cornish legend relates that a mermaid created the bar as a dying curse on the harbour after she was shot by a local man. The Doom Bar has been used in poetry to symbolise feelings of melancholy, and has given its name to the flagship ale from the local Sharp's Brewery.
The Doom Bar is a sandbar at the mouth of the Camel estuary on the north coast of Cornwall. The bar is composed mostly of coarse sediment carried up from the seabed by bed load processes, and it has been shown that there is a net inflow of sediment into the estuary. This inflow is aided by wave and tidal processes, but the exact patterns of sediment transport within the estuary are complex and are not fully understood. There is only a very small sediment contribution from the River Camel itself: most of the river's sediment is deposited much higher up the estuary.
There are three persistent sandbars in the Camel estuary: the Doom Bar; the Town Bar at Padstow, about 1 mile (1.6 km) upstream; and the Halwyn Bank just upstream of Padstow, where the estuary changes direction. All three are of similar composition; a large proportion of their sediment is derived from marine mollusc shells, and as a consequence, it includes a high level of calcium carbonate, measured in 1982 at 62 per cent. The high calcium carbonate content of the sand has meant that it has been used for hundreds of years to improve agricultural soil by liming. This use is known to date back to before 1600. High calcium carbonate levels combined with natural sea salt made the sand valuable to farmers as an alkaline fertiliser when mixed with manure.
In a report published in 1839, Henry De la Beche estimated that the sand from the Doom Bar accounted for between a fifth and a quarter of the sand used for agriculture in Devon and Cornwall. He also stated that around 80 men were permanently employed to dredge the area from several barges, removing an estimated 100,000 long tons (100,000,000 kg) of sand per year, which he said he had been "assured by competent persons" had caused a reduction in height of the bar of between 6 and 8 feet (180 and 240 cm) in the 50 years before 1836. Another report, published about twenty years earlier by Samuel Drew, stated, however, that although the sandbars had been "pillaged" for ages they remained undiminished. An estimated ten million tons of sediment was removed from the estuary between 1836 and 1989, mostly for agricultural purposes and mostly from the Doom Bar. Sand is still regularly dredged from the area; in 2009 an estimated 120,000 tons of sand were removed from the bar and the surrounding estuary.
There is a submerged forest beneath the eastern part of the Doom Bar, off Daymer Bay. It is believed to be part of the wooded plain that existed off the current Cornwall coast before it was overcome by sand dunes and beach sand during the last significant rise in sea-level, which ended around 4,000 years ago. Exposed as they are to the Atlantic Ocean, the sands of the area have always been prone to sudden shifts: several houses were said to have been buried one night during a powerful storm. According to tradition one such shift led to the formation of the Doom Bar during the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547), causing a decline in the prosperity of Padstow. Today, the sandbank covers approximately 0.4 square miles (1.0 km2), linking the beaches near Harbour Cove by sand flats, although the actual size and shape vary.
The name "Doom Bar" is a corruption of the older name Dunbar which itself derives from dune-bar. Although the bar was commonly known as "Dunbar sands" before 1900, the name "Doom Bar" was used in 1761 (as "the Doom-bar"), and it was also used in poetry, and in House of Commons papers in the nineteenth century.
For centuries, the Doom Bar was regarded as a significant danger to ships—to be approached with caution to avoid running aground. When sails were the main source of power, ships coming round Stepper Point would lose the wind, causing loss of steerage, leaving them to drift away from the channel. Sometimes, gusts of wind known colloquially as "flaws" blew over Stepper Point and pushed vessels towards the sandbank. Dropping anchor would not help, as it could not gain a firm hold on the sand. Richard Hellyer, the Sub-Commissioner of Pilotage at Padstow, gave evidence in 1859 that the Doom Bar was regarded as so dangerous that in a storm, vessels would risk being wrecked on the coast rather than negotiate the channel to Padstow harbour.
In 1761 John Griffin published a letter in the London Chronicle recommending methods for entering the Camel estuary during rough weather, particularly while north-northwest winds were blowing and described the bolts and rings he had fixed to the cliffs to assist ships trying to enter the harbour. Mooring rings were still there in 1824, and around 1830, three capstans at the base of the cliffs and bollards along the cliffs, by which means boats could be warped safely past the bar were installed.
In 1846, the Plymouth and Padstow Railway company took an interest in trying to remove the Doom Bar, hoping to increase trade through the harbour at Padstow. The plan was to create a breakwater on the bar, which would stop the build-up of sand, and the railway would transport sand from the nearby dunes to where it was needed for agricultural purposes elsewhere in the south west.
In the event, neither the breakwater nor the railway were built, but the issue was re-examined by the 1858 British Parliamentary Select committee on Harbours for Refuge. The select committee took evidence from many witnesses about harbours all around the country. For Padstow, evidence from Captain Claxton, RN, stated that without the removal of the sand, ships in distress could use the harbour only at high tide. The committee was told by J. D. Bryant, a port commissioner and Receiver of Wreck for Padstow, that in 1848 Padstow Harbour Association had cut down a small piece of Stepper Point, which had given ships about 50 fathoms of extra "fair wind" into the harbour. Bryant recommended further removal of the point which would allow a true wind along the whole channel past the dangerous sandbar.
The select committee report concluded the bar would return through re-silting if it were dredged, and there were insufficient resources to prevent it. Several alternatives were discussed, including the construction of two guide walls to sluice water across the bar, thereby removing it. Evidence was given that the bar was made up of "hard sand" which would prove difficult to remove. During the discussions, it was indicated that whilst the sandbank could be removed by a variety of methods, it would not significantly improve access to the harbour, and that a harbour of refuge would be better on the Welsh coast.