Word: lomea
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...Goodwins did not always feed on misery. Once they were fertile land known to the Kentish peasants as Lomea (The Low Island), and belonged to Earl Godwine, friend of Edward the Confessor. One legend says that Godwine, hard-pressed by his enemies, vowed to the Virgin that if he got back to Lomea he would build a steeple to Tenterden Church; when he escaped he forgot the vow. Another version: that the Abbot of Canterbury built the steeple from money intended for the island's dikes...
Whether for Earl Godwine's forgetfulness or the Abbot's enterprise, deferred punishment came to the island in 1099 when it was submerged by the sea in a storm. Lomea became one of the world's worst perils to shipping. Strong winds and tides pumping through the narrow Straits of Dover have not only built up the Goodwin's seaward side into an almost vertical wall, but driven ships into the sucking grasp of their sands. At low tide, the Goodwins are a desolate, brownish-grey archipelago; between 1824 and 1854, determined cricketers sloshed through four...
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