River and water · Kent and the Narrow Sea
Shellness
Shellness is a muddy inlet on the north-eastern coast of Kent, one of six such inlets, sharing its character with Sheerway and Stonar Cut. No one lives there, and it has neither capstan nor fund. Boats enter only as the tide allows and go out on the very same one. It is counted among the places where a licensed hull may not go, and a company should not mistake it for a landing.
- Within
- Kent and the Narrow Sea
- Named in
- Book V
History and lore
Shellness is a mud creek on Kent's northern and eastern shore, a crooked tongue of water running in among the flats, with no house beside it, no capstan and no common fund. It is one of a handful of such inlets that the coast lumps together and does not bother to describe, and the shore men put it shortly: a gap has people, a creek has only water.
A boat comes into Shellness when the tide allows her and goes out again on the same tide, for there is nothing to keep her there and nowhere dry to lie. The fishermen use it to wait out a blow or to set a man ashore close to his own road, and the gulls have the place to themselves the rest of the time. On the painted board at the Dover customs room it sits in the third column, among the places where neither a licensed merchant hull nor a Crown vessel may touch.
That rule surprises newcomers more than the creek itself. A punt may land fish or anything else that pays no duty and nobody will think twice. A hoy under licence that runs in for shelter has spent her licence the moment her keel takes the mud, and her underwriter's cover goes with it. Masters who know the coast give Shellness a wide berth for that reason alone.
Where the volumes speak of it
- Book V › 17.4 The Third Register: Where a Licensed Hull May Not Go
- Book V › Chapter 17 — Where a Hull May Lawfully Touch
