FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD
‘As the shore winds itself back from hence,’ says Camden, after
describing Flamborough Head, ‘a thin slip of land (like a small tongue
thrust out) shoots into the sea.’ This is the long natural breakwater
known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant
watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is
singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore, and
yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the broad
horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a healthy
seaside haunt.
The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the
headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of
sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the
particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys
of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and
then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves
heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that
there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in
promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize
that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely more
attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There is a
spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its interest;
for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the tide is in
a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy warning of the
dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the headland,
describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea by the
sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not frighten
away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary care in
watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy rocks at
the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the grassy top
in order to get back to Filey.
I can remember being caught in this manner, and attempting to climb up
the rather awkwardly
[Illustration: FILEY BRIG
The long projection of rock is left bare at low tide, and in rough
weather, when huge waves are breaking on it, the scene is
remarkably grand.
]
steep slope of sticky boulder-clay. No doubt, had I been empty-handed I
should have had no difficulty at all, but being impeded with a portfolio
and painting apparatus, I reached a point half-way up, where I could
make no further progress without the gravest risk of letting myself or
my drawings go. I was alone; there was no one to shout to, and the
slight grip I had seemed going, and if I could not hold on it meant a
slide over the smooth clay, followed by a perpendicular drop into the
sea. It was only by gently and patiently kicking a place for my boot to
get a grip in the greasy clay that I succeeded in saving myself and my
drawings, one of which is reproduced here.
This incident may be taken as another warning in connexion with the
chances of the Brig. Its real fascination comes, however, at times when
it can only be viewed from the top of the Naze above, when a gale is
blowing from the north or north-east, and driving enormous waves upon
the line of projecting rocks. You watch far out until the dark green
line of a higher wave than any of the others that are creating a
continuous thunder down below comes steadily onward, and reaching the
foam-streaked area, becomes still more sinister. As it approaches within
striking distance, a spent wave, sweeping backwards, seems as though it
may weaken the onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is
swallowed up and dissipated in the general advance, and with only a
smooth hollow of creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to
its fullest height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and
blown off in long white beards.
The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the
rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head
down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of
water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch
shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the
imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in
a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running with
creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of seething
foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined with
white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the
pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the moment
for another great _coup_ arrives.
It is under these conditions that the Brig has gained its reputation
rather than as a place for finding that purple-tipped species of
echinoidea, called by the fishermen, for some obscure reason, ‘buzzes’
or ‘buzzers.’ At low tide the opportunity for marine zoologists is
excellent, and the tight grip of the molluscs to the surfaces they have
chosen seems only just sufficient when we remember the cannonading they
periodically suffer.
Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being ‘quiet,’ and the sense
conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and
primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the
vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the coast
in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy and
meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating
Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and
semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its
appearance with a jetty.
From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over with
trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without claiming
any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly unobtrusive, and
has not the untidy, half-built character of so many watering-places.
Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and
densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy
tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline
and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high-pitched
roofs of Early English times have been flattened without cutting away
the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a conspicuous
feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns alternated with
octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory above pierced
with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that the nave was
built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a western tower
was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual feature is the
descent by two steps into the chancel.
A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the
bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about
eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from
Speeton to Flamborough Head.
The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over
two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a
few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.
We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the cliffs
and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight
downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the
surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The
crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen
with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On the
ledges, too, can be seen rows of little white-breasted puffins;
razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless guillemots.
The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs, and a number
of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically noticed along
these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no nest, merely
laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by those who plunder
the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays another egg, and if
that disappears, perhaps even a third. The innumerable varieties in the
eggs make the gathering of them for collectors very profitable.
Unwelcome as this annual robbing of the eggs may be, yet to watch a man
being lowered over the cliff by what appears to be a mere thread, and to
see him suspended over the restless waves, is a thrilling sight.
The great promontory of Flamborough, though in many ways claiming a high
position in the list of England’s places of natural beauty, suffers much
from being popular. In the season, I am told--for I have always visited
Flamborough in spring or autumn--the road from the station to the
lighthouse is often _crowded_, and I have not the smallest doubt that
this is true from the appearance of the roads, the village, and even the
North Landing, for on the occasion of my first visit, in the early
spring, I was painfully impressed with the feeling that everything bore
the tired, unsatisfactory appearance of a place infested with
excursionists. The edges of the paths had a look of being overworn and
overtrodden; fences, gates, and the like were too much carved with
foolish initials, and everywhere I glanced I found the distressing
scraps of old newspaper, the grocer’s paper-bag long rifled of its
contents, and the coloured cardboard box that once enclosed tablets of
chocolate. It is quite as much a desecration to litter with scraps of
dirty paper a noble cape, whose whole aspect is otherwise just as the
hand of Time has left it, as to drop sandwich-papers on the floor of
some venerable minster, and hope that the result will not be painful to
the next who enters the building.
The desecrated area of Flamborough Head lies between the village and the
North Landing, and if we are deliberately unobservant between those
points, we may be able to give the headland the appreciation it
deserves, provided always that we do not go there in the popular time.
Coming from the station, the first noticeable feature is at the point
where the road, until a few months ago, made a sharp turn into a deep
wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the remarkable
entrenchment known as the Danes’ Dyke. At this point it appears to
follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
promontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench is
purely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side has been
worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have been deeper,
making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the dwellers on the
headland a very complete security.
Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been
attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order
that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs
inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons
being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being
considered important. The results of the excavations proved conclusively
that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart were users of
flint. The one piece of pottery discovered was pierced with a hole, and
seemed to be the ear of a jar, and the worked flint implements included
a perfectly formed leaf-shaped arrow-head, a flint formed into a small
hatchet, and others chiefly coming under the head of scrapers. The most
remarkable discovery was that the ground on the inner slope of the
rampart, at a short distance below the surface, contained innumerable
artificial flint flakes, all tying in a horizontal position, but none
were found on the outer slope. From this fact General Pitt Rivers
concluded that within the stockade running along the top of the _vallum_
the defenders were in the habit of chipping their weapons, the flakes
falling on the inside. The great entrenchment of Flamborough is
consequently the work of flint-using people, and ‘is not later than the
Bronze Period.’ And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the
isolation of its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional
hatred for strangers having kept the fisher-folk of the peninsula aloof
from outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,
that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have been
reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks, for an
exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of ninety
Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that they were
above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were, with only one
or two exceptions, dark haired. They showed little or no trace of the
fair-haired element usually found in the people of this part of
Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory, when the
headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated wolds,
the village could not be approached by a stranger without some danger.
Those are years to look back upon with regret, because they are past,
for in the place of a jealous isolation has come the vulgarizing of the
mob. How much more interesting would have been an exploration of the
headland, if it were necessary to approach the great Dyke with caution,
looking anxiously round for one of the natives with whom to parley for
permission to go on, and then how sweet would have been the enjoyment of
the special privilege obtained to wander in a patch of a really
primitive England!
We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the
village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,
unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for
the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of
what is called ‘The Danish Tower’ is too insignificant to add to the
attractiveness of the place. In painfully conspicuous isolation stands a
tall and unsightly chapel, built of red brick in a style suitable for
the temple of an eccentric brotherhood. The inns are quaint in
appearance, but they have evidently never cultivated the patronage of
anyone outside the village; and a few rows of new cottages are so
woefully similar to those packed together in the slums of a great city,
that it is hard to realize the depths of depravity that could have
tolerated their construction.
All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for
their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total
indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their
entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the
cliffs nearly two miles away.
Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone
tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is a
delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied niches
richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the red,
blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the
chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir Marmaduke
Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel, is
remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in the
life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent and
potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The greatness
of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty deeds: of his
passing over to France ‘with Kyng Edwarde the fouriht, yᵗ noble knyght.’
‘And also with noble king Herre, the sevinth of that name
He was also at Barwick at the winnyng of the same [1482]
And by ky[n]g Edward chosy[n] Captey[n] there first of anyone
And rewllid and governid ther his tyme without blame
But for all that, as ye se, he lieth under this stone.’
The inscription goes on in this way to tell how he fought at Flodden
Field when he was seventy, ‘nothyng hedyng his age.’ Then follow
reflections on the passing of the valorous old knight:
‘ffor all worldly joyes they wull not long endure
They are sonne passed and away dothe glyde
And who that puttith his trust i[n] the[m] I call hy[m] most u[n]sure
ffor when deth strikith he sparith no creature
Nor gevith no warny[n]g but takith the[m] by one and one.
And now he abydyth Godis mercy and hath no other socure.’
Sir Marmaduke’s daughter Catherine was married to Sir Roger Cholmley,
called ‘the Great Black Knight of the North,’ who was the first of his
family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving his
knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.
The castle, or fortified house of the Constables, is reduced to the
insignificant ‘Danish Tower’ we have seen. It stands in a meadow, and
sheep crop the grass which covers but does not hide the outline of the
foundations. Yorkshire being a county rich in superstitions, it is not
surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back from going to his
boat, if he happens on his way to meet a parson, a woman, or a hare, as
any one of these brings bad luck. It is also extremely unwise to mention
to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg.
This sounds foolish, but a fisherman will abandon his work till the next
day if these animals are mentioned in his presence.[B]
On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious
beaches for the fishermen to bring in their boats. They have no
protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such
miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having ever
been made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that
side is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the
steep slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these
circumstances the South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects
to the northern one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is
less picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed
between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea.
Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish
green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay slopes
back to the grass above.
When the boats have just come in and added their gaudy vermilions,
blues, and emerald greens to the picture, the North Landing is worth
seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots, coming almost to
their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets
pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up
the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where
carts take the fish to the station four miles away.
In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the
peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The
chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honeycombed with caves.
Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque groups in
some of the
[Illustration: FLAMBOROUGH HEAD
A typical cove at the outermost part of the promontory. The sea
will probably isolate the projecting mass in the centre of the
picture and wear it down until it becomes a slender stack.
]
small bays, and everywhere there is the interest of watching the heaving
waters far below, with white gulls floating unconcernedly on the
surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing as they circle just
above the waves.
The greatest of the caves is associated with the name of Robin Lythe, a
legendary smuggler, who assumes vitality in the pages of the late Mr.
Blackmore’s ‘Mary Anerley’--a story associated with Flamborough in the
same manner as ‘Lorna Doone’ is connected with Exmoor.
Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of
chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of
age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and
purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt
that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being
extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder
stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.
In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada was
sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in the
East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted, and
what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says briefly:
‘Flambrough, three beacons uppon the sea cost, takinge lighte from
Bridlington, and geving lighte to Rudstone.’
There is no reference to any tower, and the beacons everywhere seem
merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by
two, and every night by three ‘honest house-holders ... above the age of
thirty years.’ The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put
up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the
dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as
exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed
to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a
matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower
ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed on
the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great
that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the
early structure came into existence.
Year after year when night fell the cliffs were shrouded in blackness,
with the direful result that between 1770 and 1806 one hundred and
seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It
remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington--a Mr.
Milne--to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of
Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful
light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result
was that in the first seven years of its beneficent work no vessel was
‘lost on that station when the lights could be seen.’ The strangest fact
concerning the affair is that no one appears to have taken advantage of
the old tower--at least, as a temporary expedient--although it stood
there manifestly for that purpose, stoutly resisting all the gales, as
it continues to do, although more than a century has elapsed.
One night, a good many years ago, when the glass of the lantern was
thinner than now, the light was extinguished for a few minutes during a
gale. A teal duck, which has a very rapid flight, came right through a
pane of glass, being nearly cut in two, and leaving a hole for the wind
to bluster through at the same moment.
The derivation of the name Flamborough has been conclusively shown to
have nothing at all to do with the English word ‘flame,’ being possibly
a corruption of _Fleinn_, a Norse surname, and _borg_ or _burgh_,
meaning a castle. In Domesday it is spelt ‘Flaneburg,’ and _flane_ is
the Norse for an arrow or sword.
At the point where the chalk cliffs disappear and the low coast of
Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of
Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and
even now there are two towns--the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish,
place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday
resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the
railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the ‘Three Towns’
of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide parades, all
those ‘attractions’ which exercise their potential energies on certain
types of mankind as each summer comes round. There are seats,
concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks, refreshment-bars,
boats, bathing-machines, a switch-back railway, and even a spa, by which
means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused, and given every excuse
for loitering within a few yards of the long curving line of waves that
advances and retreats over the much-trodden sand.
The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature in
the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington
Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque. In northerly
gales the harbour is the only place of refuge between Harwich and Leith
for ships going northwards, owing to the shelter of Flamborough Head and
the good anchorage of the sandy bay. It is due to its favoured position
under these circumstances that Bridlington has enjoyed a well-protected
harbour for sixty years.
In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She
had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and ammunition
for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch ships to
Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended to land,
and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl of
Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper
security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however,
conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at
Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is
told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25,
1642. It describes how, after two days’ riding at anchor, the cavalry
arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the rest
of the loyal army came to wait on her.
‘God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise
continue his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the
Parliament Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by
us; and at foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which
caused us to send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of
Ammunition, which were but newly landed. But about an houre after
the foure Ships began to ply us so fast with their Ordinance, that
it made us all to rise out of our beds with diligence, and leave
the Village, at least the women; for the Souldiers staid very
resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their forces should
land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon the house
where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and before
She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud about
her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing to
Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the
house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the
neighbouring houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to
the bottome of the house where She was; so that (clothed as She
could) She went on foot some little distance out of the Towne,
under the shelter of a Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither
before She could get, the Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and
a Sergeant was killed within twenty paces of Her. We in the end
gained the Ditch, and staid there two houres, whilest their Cannon
plaid all the time upon us; the bullets flew for the most part over
our heads, Some few onely grazing on the Ditch where the Queene
was, covered us with earth.’
This bombardment only ceased when the Dutch Admiral sent to the
Parliamentary ships to tell them that if they did not cease firing, he
would consider them as enemies, and give order for his own vessels to
open fire upon them. The tardiness of this action was explained by the
Admiral as being due to the mist.
‘Upon that they staid their shooting, and likewise being ebbing
water, they could not stay longer neare the shore. As soone as they
were retired, the Queene returned to the house where She lay, being
unwilling to allow them the vanity of saying, They made Her forsake
the Towne. We went at noone to Burlington, whither we were resolved
to goe before this accident; and all that day in face of the enemie
we disimbarqued our Ammunition. It is said that one of the
Captaines of the Parliament Ships had been at the Towne before us,
to observe where the Queene’s lodging was; and I assure you he
observed it well, for he ever shot at it.’
A Parliamentary tract of the same time says that when Charles I., who
was at Oxford, heard of his consort’s escape, he is said to have
remarked that ‘the shipmen did not shoote at her, but onely tryed how
neere they could goe and misse, as good marksmen use to do.’ This would
have been poor comfort, even if such knowledge had reached the Queen, as
she crouched in the ditch showered with earth from the flying
cannon-balls.
In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian
Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure
known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery.
They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to
form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any
real charm in the domestic architecture of the streets. Everywhere you
look the houses are commonplace and without individuality. This example
of early work is therefore isolated in its medievalism, in contrast to
the bars of York, which are surrounded by early types of houses in
keeping with their antiquity. The Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch
and a postern, and the date of its erection appears to be the end of the
fourteenth century, when permission was given to the prior to fortify
the monastery. Unhappily for Bridlington, an order to destroy the
buildings was given soon after the Dissolution, and the nave of the
church seems to have been spared only because it was used as the parish
church. Quite probably, too, the gatehouse was saved from destruction on
account of the room it contains having been utilized for holding courts.
The upper portions of the church towers are modern restorations, and
their different heights and styles give the building a remarkable, but
not a beautiful, outline. At the west end, between the towers, is a
large Perpendicular window occupying the whole width of the nave, and on
the north side the vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.
The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns built
in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on the north
side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been destroyed with
the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is merely a portion of
the nave separated with screens. One of the most interesting of the
monuments is the grave slab of Prior Robert Burstwick, who died in 1493,
and whose coffin was found in 1821 in the ground where the south
transept formerly stood. The prior’s beard and the cloth his body had
been wrapped in were found to be undecayed.
Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low
coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is
nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its
featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.
The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power
to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of gingerbread.
The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries, and stories of
lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with all the way to
Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we come to a point
on the shore where, looking out among the lines of breaking waves, we
are including the sides of the two demolished villages of Auburn and
Hartburn. There is no good road close to the sea, for it would scarcely
be a wise policy to spend money on a highway that would year by year be
brought nearer to the edge of the low cliffs, and another significant
fact is the shyness the railways show to this vanishing coast. Two lines
from Hull venture down to the sea, but neither has been continued to the
north or south along the coast, although the joining of Hornsea with
Bridlington would be eminently convenient.
From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance to
it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the lordship of
Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer that it was
the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having practically
no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary, and these we
find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded by a ditch, and
a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists on the south-west
side. No masonry of any description can be seen on the grass-covered
embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once crowned, it is surmised,
by a Norman keep, there is one small piece of stonework. These
earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later opinion labels them
post-Conquest.[C] In the time of the Domesday Survey the Seigniory of
Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a Flemish adventurer who joined
in the Norman invasion of England and received this extensive fief from
the Conqueror. He also was given the King’s niece in marriage as a mark
of special favour; but having for some reason seen fit to poison her, he
fled from England, it is said, during the last few months of William’s
reign. The Barony of Holderness was forfeited, but Drogo was never
captured.
Poulson, the historian of Holderness, states that Henry III. gave orders
for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of Albemarle,
its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When Edward II.
ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion Piers
Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl of
Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great
Seigniory of Holderness. Owing to the distractions in England caused by
Edward’s stubborn refusal to give up his favourite, Robert Bruce
successfully drove the English out of Scotland. The need of men to
resist the victorious Scots is shown by the levies raised in Holderness
at this time, on all men between the ages of twenty and sixty, who were,
according to their means, to act either as men-at-arms, on heavy horses,
fully armed _cap-à-pie_, or as light cavalry for skirmishing and for
harassing the enemy’s flanks.
Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on a
large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on come
to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea and
the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise to the
stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake in a
perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be found.
Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that day is
likely to be put further off year by year on account of the growth of a
new town on the shore, and the increased rateable value of the place
when large sums of money are required for sea-defence. A verse,
according to Poulson, inscribed on the old steeple of the church, which
collapsed in 1733, gives a sensational impression of the encroachments
of the ocean in the past:
‘Hornsea steeple, when I builded thee,
Thou was ten miles off Burlington,
Ten miles off Beverley, and ten miles off sea.’
But when we find that Hornsea Church is thirteen miles from Bridlington
and twelve from Beverley as the crow flies, inductive reasoning would
suggest that a similar freedom may have been taken with the third
measurement, this time expanding the result liberally to round off the
last line impressively. It may be remarked that ten miles out to sea
from Hornsea Church is more than a mile outside the ten-fathoms line,
and far beyond the outermost point of Flamborough Head. It has been
calculated from the present rate of erosion that, since the Norman
Conquest, a strip of land a mile in width has been washed away.
The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to Beverley
skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface seen
through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of them
having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being supported in
a horizontal position by their branches. The picture given here was
drawn on a wintry day when the sun was struggling through mist and
making a golden path across the rippling waters. The islands and the
swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless water-fowl,
and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to
a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St. Mary’s
Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of Meaux, laid
claim to fishing rights in the southern half of the lake, only to find
his brother Abbot of York determined to resist the claim. The cloisters
of the two abbeys must have buzzed with excitement over the _impasse_,
and relations became so strained that the only method of determining the
issue was by each side agreeing to submit to the result of a judicial
combat between champions selected by the two monasteries. Where the
fight took place I do not know, and the number of champions is not
mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse was first swum across
the lake,
[Illustration: HORNSEA MERE
Is the largest of the natural lakes of Yorkshire. It is well
stocked with fish, and wild-fowl are numerous on its islets and
marshy shores.
]
and stakes fixed to mark the limits of the claim. On the day appointed
the combatants chosen by each abbot appeared properly accoutred, and
they fought from morning until evening, when, at last, the men
representing Meaux were beaten to the ground, and the York abbot
retained the whole fishing rights of the Mere.
Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between
the western ends of the aisles. It chiefly dates from Decorated times,
with Perpendicular windows inserted. A fine alabaster altar-tomb under
one of the arches of the south arcade has been terribly maltreated, and
only a few words of the inscription running round the top slab are
legible. We have no difficulty in reading the words ‘Hic jacet Magister
Antonius de,’ and, with the help of Poulson, discover that this is the
tomb of Anthony St. Quintin, who died in 1430, and was the last rector.
It is the only tomb I have seen defaced with the outlines of shoes cut
upon its surface. A wooden trap-door in the chancel opens into a
small crypt consisting of two barrel vaults of brick with stone
below. A recess on the north side appears to be a fireplace. An
eighteenth-century parish clerk utilized this crypt for storing smuggled
goods, and was busily at work there on a stormy night in 1732, when a
terrific blast of wind tore the roof off the church. The shock, we are
told, brought on a paralytic seizure of which he died.
By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in
this new position and supplied with a modern head.
As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the
desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny
waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain from
feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and the
waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before
satisfying a fresh appetite.
The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour and
pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely disappeared
since the time of James I., and so also has the place called Hornsea
Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven acres of arable
land. At the end of that century not one of those acres remained. The
fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from Withernsea, is
pathetic. For a number of years the church remained on the verge of the
cliff, in the same way as the ruins of the last church of Dunwich, in
Suffolk, stand to-day. The graveyard was steadily destroyed, until 1816,
when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the
eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and a
cloud of dust. When the sea went down, the shore was found littered with
debris, and among the coffins there was one believed to be that of the
founder. The body had been embalmed with fragrant spices and aromatics,
which, even after exposure to the air, had not lost their original
odour.
Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
churchyard left, and in 1844 the Vicarage and the remaining houses were
absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
The old village of Withernsea, no doubt, disappeared in a similar
fashion. For the modern town we feel pity more than indignation. It
consists of a haphazard collection of ugly lodging-houses, a modern
church and a conspicuous lighthouse, whose revolving light glares into
the windows of half the houses in the town, making sleep impossible. The
place seems consciously at war with the ocean, and gazes ruefully at
the remains of its iron pier, a limb that was savagely handled by the
sea some years ago. No doubt the frail sea-wall will crumble away before
long, and the depressing houses will then follow rapidly.
The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more attenuated,
and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer to the sea
winter by winter. This fact makes the restoration of the church no easy
matter, for who would subscribe to a fund for spending money on a
building that may follow the fate of Owthorne and a dozen other places?
Close to the church, Easington has been fortunate in preserving its
fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with a thatched roof. The interior
has that wonderfully imposing effect given by huge posts and beams
suggesting a wooden cathedral.
At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the
waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with
salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not
more than fifteen feet high. Unfortunately, too, they slope downwards
inland, so that each yard destroyed by the sea makes the front lower and
less effective. The road comes to an end a short distance beyond
Kilnsea, and the rest of the way to Spurn Head, marked by its
conspicuous lighthouse, visible a long way to the north, is over the
rough grass of the spit of hummocky sand which forms the extremity of
this corner of Yorkshire.
BEVERLEY