Roman inspired sand dunes

St Andrews Links

Scotland

Written by: Ranald Strachan

When juggling public access with flood prevention and habitat creation, we thought we would take a look at how the Romans did things. Roman marching camps have a special 'clavicular' gate at each side and this is a good identifying feature on aerial photographs. The gates were designed to offset the access to the camp by adding a simple overlap in the outer fencing. This prevented the enemy outside from making a straight attack.

Now if this principle worked for the flow of people, then it should work for the flow of water. So we decided to try it, and behold it did slow the on-surge of low waves. It also prevented the path from filling with blown sand and created a nicer, more natural look and feel to accessing the beach. In March 2022 we added two more clavicular gates, because they work. here is the latest one. Thanks to those deviously clever Romans.

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