Sound and vision blog

Whether it’s the sound of waves rolling on to golden sands, seagulls crying from the clifftops or children playing on the beach, we're on a mission to discover the UK’s favourite coastal sound! Drawing from some of the finest recordings submitted by members of the public to the Sounds of our Shores project, we've come up with a list of 10 sounds that in some way represent an aspect of the UK coastline. From nature to industry, transport to entertainment, these evocative sounds immediately transport you to the coast, having the power to bring back treasured memories or instantly calm the senses. 

So what have we chosen? Here's a breakdown of the 10 sounds that have been selected for this public vote:

1. Children playing on Brean Sands

 2. Dredging oysters at Brightlingsea 

3. Gentle waves at Trwyn Llanbedrog 

4. Ghost train ride - Palace Pier, Brighton 

 5. Kittiwakes at the nest

 6. Mumbles raft race

 7. River Mersey ferries in the fog

8. Seagulls and waves at Black Bay, near Monreith 

9. Seals calling and snorting on Raithlin Island 

 10. Singing Sands, Eigg, Scottish Hebrides

To take part in the vote to find the UK's favourite coastal sound, simply complete the Sounds of our Shores online poll here. We'll be announcing the winner in early September so make sure you register your vote before midnight on Thursday 27th August.

Sounds of our Shores runs until the 21st September so there's still plenty of time to record and upload your favourite coastal sounds. Full details of how to take part can be found here.

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Sounds of our Shores is a three month collaborative project between the British Library, the National Trust, the National Trust for Scotland and audioBoom Ltd, running from 21st June to 21st September 2015.

A couple of weeks ago, Paul Nichols wrote about the sounds of Norfolk's Blakeney Point, where he works as a ranger for the National Trust. We now hear from fellow ranger Kate Martin, who is based in the formby area, as she describes her favourite auditory memories.

I think hearing and smell are the two most evocative senses we have as human beings. One single sound can transport you back to a very specific place and time and can even make you recall the exact feelings you had at that moment. The coastal landscape of the UK is full of these sounds for me, and hearing any one of them is guaranteed to make me smile wistfully if I happen to be away from the coast.

One such sound is the piping call of the Oystercatcher. On hearing that high pitched “peep-peep” I am about 4 years old, standing on the steps outside of the cottage that we went to for our summer holidays on the Solway Firth in Galloway. I can feel the sun beating down, I can smell the coconut- scent of the gorse bushes that grew behind the beach and I can hear the cry of the oystercatchers as they move around the bay, searching for mussels and limpets on the rocks or tasty worms and other morsels buried under the sand.

Another more recent auditory memory comes from the wonderful Sefton Coast, where I am lucky enough to work as a National Trust Area Ranger. This sound has unfortunately been lost in many areas where it used to exist, but it still hangs on in a few precious locations in the UK. The sound is the unmistakeable call of the Natterjack Toad, which always reminds me of a well-worn ratchet being wound round and round. The toad can only be heard on warm nights between April and the end of June, and due to its nocturnal serenading it has earned the local name of the ‘Birkdale nightingale’. This sound reminds me of sitting on my front step in Formby with my husband and my border collie Lottie (and most importantly a chilled glass of white wine) at around 11pm on a balmy May evening, listening to the distant call of the male toads trying to attract a mate in the breeding pools. The most amazing thing is that these breeding pools are approximately 1km from where we were sitting, pretty impressive for a creature 7cm long!

A view of the sand dunes and beach at Formby, Liverpool (National Trust Images / Jemma Street)

I could go on for a long time listing coastal sounds and the places they remind me of, such as the babble and squabble of guillemots and South Stack on Anglesey, or the ethereal cry of grey seals and the Lizard peninsula. However the final sound I will leave you with, which is probably the most common in my day-to-day job, is the sound of an Area Ranger unintentionally crunching sand between her teeth after a day’s work on the wind-blasted sand dunes  - nice!

Sounds of our Shores is a three month collaborative project between the British Library, the National Trust, the National Trust for Scotland and audioBoom Ltd, running from 21st June to 21st September 2015. Full details on the project and how to take part can be found here.

David Hendy is a media historian and professor of Media and Communication at the University of Sussex. Formerly a radio producer for the BBC, he has a deep interest in the relationship between humans and sound, in particular how these relationships can help us understand human experiences throughout history.  In 2013, he wrote and presented the 30-part Radio 4 series ‘Noise: a Human History’.

Our relationship with the coast has certainly changed over the years, and as a historian I think that studying sound can be a really useful way of reflecting that. Places like Brighton and other south coast towns were pretty small in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period: Brighton itself was a fishing village in decline, a working environment. However, by the end of the 18th century there was a growing fashion for sea-bathing, which resulted in more and more people visiting the area, but also in new kinds of sound. On the beach here in Brighton, for example, you’d probably hear the sounds of bathing machines being dragged up and down the shingle, sometimes pulled by horses. 

This leisure industry really took off in the 19th century once you had the railways facilitating day-trippers, but also when you started to have the notion of a ‘weekend off’ from work. Londoners would come down in their thousands upon thousands, and they were in search of fun. So all these towns like Brighton and Margate had to compete with each other to attract them through entertainment. This meant piers, funfairs and penny arcades, open-air theatres, bandstands. 

Nowadays, those have been added to by things like volleyball courts, bars and nightclubs, which continue to attract so many people in the high season that one of Brighton’s alternative monikers is ‘London-by-Sea’.  But really these attractions are all just the latest modern versions of something that’s been going on for over 150 years. The sounds might have changed, but people have been coming to these places to have fun – and sometimes quite raucous fun – for generations.

Personally, it’s that whole mix of sounds that I like about the coast. If you come down to Brighton and you lie on the beach and shut your eyes, you’ll hear an incredibly rich tapestry of sounds: the waves act as a baseline, on top of which you have other natural sounds like the wind and gulls, but also that element of people enjoying themselves in the cafes or the arcade. When you visit the coast you might have a rough idea of what you’re going to hear, but it’s the way in which those ingredients vary from place to place and from time to time, season to season, which makes the coast endlessly fascinating.

 I think a big part of people’s attraction to the coast stems from the fact that most of us don’t live near the sea these days. So when we do go to the beach, what we’re really trying to experience is a different landscape – and soundscape - to the one that we have in our daily lives. When we listen we are surrounded by sound - it’s a 360 degree experience - and we feel part of the environment in a way I don’t think we do when we simply look at something. In every day life we perhaps tend to take the sounds around us for granted, and I think one of the main virtues of this sound map project is the fact that it will help draw people’s attention to the kind of sensory experiences which we might usually overlook.  It will help remind us how precious these sounds are as part of our heritage, and how much we value them.

[Adapted from interview: https://audioboom.com/boos/3375362-professor-david-hendy-on-sound-history-and-brighton]

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Sounds of our Shores is a three month collaborative project between the British Library, the National Trust, the National Trust for Scotland and audioBoom Ltd, running from the 21st June to 21st September. Full details on how to take part can be found here.

For many of us, coastal sounds are experienced sporadically during the year, either through the occasional day trip to the seaside or more prolonged bouts during periods of annual leave. For some though, the sounds of our amazing coastline form part of everyday life. Here, Paul Nichols, Seasonal Assistant Ranger for the National Trust, describes the changing sounds of Norfolk's Blakeney Point.

The year begins with howling winds battering the coast: churning up waves and sending them crashing onto the shingle spit. Once the wind drops however, the air is filled instead by the sounds of Blakeney’s resident birds: the gentle gurgling of Brent Geese merging with the soft 'wheeeo' whistles of Wigeon in the harbour. I will always remember my early days of working at Blakeney Point, and the moment when I first heard the calls of Shelducks wintering on the spit– a loud quacking sound like a ratchet being wound at high speed. I had never come across the noise until I joined the ranger team, but now I will always associate this sound with happy times working on the Norfolk coast. While walking along the beach I also often come across a flock of small brown birds, which explode into a white-winged blizzard as I approach. These are the elusive Snow Buntings, whose soft calls echo around the winter strandline along with that of their cousins – the Lapland Bunting. 

View south from nature reserve at Blakeney point, Norfolk (National Trust Images / Rod Edwards)

As Winter turns to Spring, breeding becomes the focus for birds on the Point. Skylarks serenade me through the dunes and remind me that summer is on the way, while Meadow Pipits make their ‘parachute’ display flights overhead, always accompanied by their high-pitched piping call. Stocky black-and-white Oystercatchers gather in large flocks to engage in fierce duels for dominance, rending the air with their ear-piercing ‘kleep…kleep… ’ battle-cries.

During high summer the harsh cries of our breeding terns and gulls can be heard, as they do their best to gather fish for their hungry chicks. The ‘ooooh’ sound of the Mediterranean Gulls always reminds me of village gossips getting hold of some juicy news, and provides an amusing backdrop to a summer stroll along the shoreline. While walking on the shingle it’s worth keeping an eye on where you put your feet, especially if you hear the ‘pu-whip pu-whip’ call of Ringed Plovers: they tend to lay their eggs in a shallow scrape on the ground, where they are camouflaged against the shingle and very easy to step on!

Visitors to the Point in late autumn or early winter could be forgiven for thinking they can hear the cries of a human baby – in fact it will be the cries of a silky Grey Seal pup demanding to be fed. Adult seals add to the cacophony with their melancholy wailing and snorting: females protect their pups by howling at other seals who get too close, while male bulls display their dominance to rivals by slamming their 400KG bulk into the ground.

A seal on a beach at Blakeney Point (National Trust Images / Joe Cornish)

Of course there is still plenty of birdlife around: Linnets twitter as they gather into large and vocal winter flocks, while from among the seablite plants growing on the salt-flats there comes the distinctive voice of a Reed Bunting calling for its mate.

These are only a few of the sounds that can be heard here on the Norfolk coast: you just need to open your ears and let them all flood in.

Sounds of our Shores is a three month collaborative project between the British Library, the National Trust, the National Trust for Scotland and audioBoom Ltd, running from 21st June to 21st September 2015. Full details on the project and how to take part can be found here. In the meantime, here are a few recordings of the Norfolk coastline that have been submitted by members of the public:

As we enter the third week of the Sounds of our Shores coastal sound map project, we thought we'd showcase some of the recordings that have been submitted so far. From waves to lighthouse foghorns, these recordings will help us build a comprehensive picture of what the British coastline sounded like during the summer of 2015. Here we take a look at some of the natural history and leisure sounds that members of the public have been busy recording.

Waves

From small waves breaking on sand to the tumble of pebbles being moved back and forth by the tide on a shingle beach, these recordings are perhaps the most evocative of all the coastal sounds: 

Wildlife

The British coastline is home to an incredible variety of wildlife, from seabirds and songbirds to mammals and invertebrates. Here are some of the wildlife sounds that have been recorded so far:

Amusements

From amusement arcades to seaside funfairs, these sounds immediately conjure up memories of holidays at some of our favourite seaside towns:

If you're heading to the coast during the next three months, why not record your own favourite sounds, either with your smartphone or a digital recorder, and share these on the Sounds of our Shores channel? The project runs until the 21st September so there's plenty of time to get down to your nearest seaside town or favourite coastal spot! Full details on how to take part can be found here.

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Sounds of our Shores is a three month collaborative project between the British Library, the National Trust, the National Trust for Scotland and audioBoom Ltd.

Over the next three months, the British Library, the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland are encouraging everyone to get themselves down to the seaside and record their favourite coastal sounds. This could be anything from gentle waves lapping onto a sandy Devon beach to the amusement arcades of Brighton Pier.

These sonic memories will be shared through the Sounds of our Shores channel, created specifically for this project by audioBoom, as well as an interactive coastal soundmap hosted by the library.

One of the outcomes of the project, once the initial crowdsourcing element has come to a close on the 21st September, will be a musical work composed by musician and producer Martyn Ware. Founder member of both Heaven 17 and the Human League, Martyn describes what the sounds of the British coastline mean to him:

It’s a very important thing to me that sound is an under-appreciated sense that we have. When we go anywhere; when we go to the cinema, when we’re walking around a park, when we’re walking across a bridge, over a river - we tend to think that everything we do is visual, or the way we remember things is visual. In fact that is not the case. I discovered this when we were doing a 3D sound project on the Millennium Bridge in London - every time we switched the soundscape on people used to take more photographs.  

This relates to the coast as well because I think that the sounds of the coast are probably more important than how the coast looks when you go to the sea. The sea is the sea and it’s very nice to look at. It’s meditative, the sound of the sea is an amazing thing, as are the sounds of people being happy. Generally when people are by water they tend to be happier because it is a relaxing experience. But think for a moment about the sounds of the seaside: of course you’ve got the sea, but also the sounds of people laughing, children playing, people singing, trams if it were Blackpool.  Certainly seabirds too, various kinds depending on how remote your location is, but definitely seagulls all the time. And you have people swimming, people possibly splashing in the water. There are various ways that these sounds are amplified according to where you are, according to whether you’re on an open stretch, on a spit, or if it is very, very quiet. The sea would hit ,something like the Dorset Coast which can be very shingly for instance, and when the sea hits that, it makes an entirely different sound to when it hits a shallow piece of beach like at Cleethorpes where I used to go as a boy.  

Martyn Ware recording the sounds of Brighton beach (courtesy of Tim Stubbings)

The sound that I love most about the the sea is that roar, the roar when it’s stormy.  It’s beautiful.  I also love the tiny little splashes when the sea hits rocks or rockpools.  I like recording tiny little sounds, maybe of crabs walking around on rocks, but I like the giant sounds too of course, the giant waves.  But really what the seaside symbolises to me is relaxation, enjoyment and a sense of well -being really.  I’ve always been very fond of being close to the sea. 

The seaside has many forms and I urge everyone to think about sound. Just put that at the front of your mind when you next go to the seaside: think about how important sound is to your experience.  Imagine there was no sound.  Just do it as an experiment. Hopefully my artwork will encourage you to think about the beauty and complexity and the nuance of your experience when you are at the seaside. 

Sounds of our Shores runs from 21st June to 21st September 2015. Full details on how to take part can be found here.

From the crashing of waves to the sound of children’s laughter floating on the air. The shrill of a victorious arcade machine to the wall of noise from a seabird colony; these are the sounds of our shores.

As the National Trust celebrates the 50th year of its Neptune Coastline Campaign and the 775 miles of coastline it looks after, the charity is joining forces with the British Library, the National Trust for Scotland and audioBoom Ltd to celebrate every inch of the coastline by creating the UK’s first ever coastal soundmap. 

Over the next three months, the project is encouraging everyone to grab their smartphones or digital recorders and head out to capture sounds from along our much-loved coastline; from the bustling beaches of Cornwall to the remote cliffs of the Scottish islands, or the urban humdrum of the Thames Estuary. 

Beam Engine Houses, Bollatack, Cornwall (David Noton)

These sounds play a powerful part in shaping our memories of days spent on the coast. They have a wonderful way of connecting us to our favourite places. For some it might be the sounds of a fishing village passed through on a favourite seaside stroll or the comfort of a whistling kettle from inside a beach hut, ready to warm you up after a valiant swim in the still biting sea. 

Waves on rocky beach, recorded in Durness, Scotland by Richard Margoschis

Staithes, North Yorkshire (Joe Cornish) 

Wind in yacht rigging, recorded in Largs Harbour, Scotland by Richard Beard

Whatever it is, once you’ve found the sounds that perfectly capture your idea of the coast, you can upload them to the sound map via the audioBoom ‘sounds of our shores’ channel. Tag the location of the recording, add a picture and jot down a few words describing the sound and what it means to you. We’d love to hear your stories about favourite coastal sounds that remind you of your seaside experiences.

If you're looking for inspiration, listen to some of the British Library's own coastal sounds, such as this collection of waves - from our website you can access thousands of recordings, from music and spoken word to wildlife and environmental sounds, which are held in our national sound archive. Find out more about the nation's 6.5 million recordings, and the efforts to digitise it, on our Save our Sounds campaign page.

For those who would like some more guidance on sound recording, keep an eye on the Sounds of our Shores website. As well as being able to hear what other people have been recording, you can also check out a list of ‘top tips’ - including a new use for that odd sock you’re about to throw out!

The project will run until 21 September so there is plenty of time to upload your sounds.  We’ll be picking out our favourites throughout the project so make sure you share yours with us on social media using #shoresounds.