Auburn, Hartburn, Northorpe, Monkswell, Monkwike, Waxholme, Dimlington, Turmarr,
Orwithfleete, Tharlesthorpe, Owthorne, Hoton, Sunthorpe, old Kilnsea, Ravenser and
Ravenser Odd — they all lie under the sea off the Holderness coast, in the East Riding
of Yorkshire. In their time they had churches, fields, farm-
Most of the collapses of these little communities went unrecorded, since they happened
before regular written records existed. But the end of Ravenser Odd is a different
matter, because it was associated with the Abbey of Meaux, near Beverley, and the
monks kept excellent records. Ravenser Odd was a thriving, bustling sea port with
streets and buildings at the end of a peninsula (a predecessor of Spurn Head) at
the tip of South Holderness. At the height of its fortunes in the early years of
the fourteenth century, Ravenser Odd was a town of national importance, supplying
the king with two fully equipped ships and armed men for his wars with the Scots.
The port flourished from about 1235, but by about 1340 it was being threatened by
the inroads of the sea. By 1346 two thirds of the town and its buildings had been
lost to the sea, and the people that remained were no longer able to make a living
by trade, or to pay the tolls and tithes that had been levied upon them. Between
1349 and 1360, the sea completed its destruction of Ravenser Odd. The erosion exposed
the bodies buried in the chapel’s graveyard, much as it was to do some 450 years
later at nearby Kilnsea and Owthorne. As was to happen later at Kilnsea, the bodies
were re-
At Owthorne, just north of Withernsea, the loss of the village happened in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In 1786 the church was only 12 yards from the cliff edge. The congregation and incumbent recognised that its downfall was inevitable and made plans accordingly. In 1793 the chancel was taken down, and six years later the rest of the church was demolished (the dressed stones being utilised for other buildings). The graveyard was now on the cliff edge, and some of the bodies were taken out of the churchyard and removed to Rimswell Church. However, removing the bones of centuries of parishioners was impracticable, and a description from George Poulson’s History and Antiquities of the Seigniory of Holderness (1840), is quite harrowing, describing : ‘whitened bones projecting from the cliff, … and after a fearful storm, old persons tottering on the verge of life, have been slowly moving forth and recognising [!] on the shore the remains of those who in early life they had known and revered’.
With the church, once in the middle of the parish, gone, the villagers watched whilst the rest of their little settlement disappeared over the cliffs. When Owthorne’s southerly neighbour, Withernsea, was transformed by the new Hull to Withernsea railway line in 1864, almost nothing of Owthorne remained. Happily the villagers had a new source of income when Withernsea became a prosperous seaside resort.
Old Kilnsea
Kilnsea’s downfall was very similar to that of Owthorne. Kilnsea is a small triangular settlement, at the tip of South Holderness. It is bounded on the east by the North Sea, on the west by the River Humber, and on the north by the village of Easington. As the land narrows to the south it merges into the Spurn peninsula. Kilnsea has lost, and is still losing, land to the sea. The soft boulder clay cliffs crumble away, and the annual loss varies between one and three yards (or metres) annually. Even on the western side of the parish some loss of land is experienced, though only when westerly gales coincide with tidal surges in the River Humber. When it was recorded in the Domesday Book (1086), Kilnsea village was several miles from the sea, and the dwellings of the village were established upon a hill. By the late eighteenth century the village was still intact, though it had lost its East Field. Around the houses and cottages were little gardens and small fields, with a village pond and a green, and a Medieval church. Apart from the church itself, a large ornate stone cross was the most prominent landmark. It had apparently been erected on the peninsula further south to commemorate the landing of Henry IV at Ravenser in 1399, but was removed to Kilnsea in the early sixteenth century when the peninsula had become eroded.
The cross was placed upon the village green, but by the early nineteenth century
it was on the edge of the cliff and the proximity of the sea enforced its removal
to Burton Constable in 1818. James Iveson, the agent and attorney of the Constables,
had plans to establish a high-