The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #77133   Message #3691287
Posted By: GUEST,Tom F. (e-mail to Joe Offer) 29 Jan 2015
04-Mar-15 - 02:24 AM
Thread Name: DT Corr: The Shoals of Herring (Ewan MacColl)
Subject: RE: DT Corr: The Shoals of Herring (Ewan MacColl)
Have something to offer: You have a couple of threads on The Shoals of Herring by Ewan MacColl. I wanted to find the places mentioned in the song (Canny Shields, etc.) and found a minor error in the lyrics as usually published.

"Now we fished the Swarth and the Broken Bank": Where is the Swarth? Actually it's the Swarte, which is one of the sub-banks of the North Norfolk Sandbanks in the North Sea, as is the Broken Bank. Took me awhile to find:

"The North Norfolk Sandbanks are the most extensive example of the offshore linear ridge sandbank type in UK waters…. The banks included are: Leman, Ower, Inner, Well, Broken, Swarte and four banks called, collectively, the Indefatigables. The summits of the banks are in water shallower than 20m below Chart Datum, and the flanks of the banks extend into waters up to 40 m deep."