EVIDENCES RELATING TO EAST HULL. 

 By Thos. Blashill, F.R.I.B.A. 



THE extended boundary of the eastern portion of the 

 City of Kingston-upon-Hull includes the modern 

 parish of Drypool-with-Southcoates and a large 

 portion of the parish of Sutton, consisting chiefly of the 

 hamlet of Stoneferry. It includes, also, the more distant 

 Marfleet. New streets and buildings are fast obliterating 

 ancient sites, with the boundaries of at least half a dozen 

 manors, and it is important to put upon record, before it is 

 too late, the former condition of these territories. I shall 

 have to use some of the materials already published in my 

 "History of Sutton," and must refer to it for fuller details 

 on many matters, but it was my research for that object 

 which made possible this contribution to local history. 



In early times, when the district east of the valley of the 

 Hull was called the Isle of Holderness, that wide low-lying 

 valley, except in a few favoured spots, was freely subject to 

 the tidal ebb and flow. The date of the embankment of the 

 Humber and the Hull is too large a question to be settled 

 apart from other investigations, but, judging from the 

 inadequate description of Sutton in Domesday Book, I have 

 suggested that, in 1086, all our low grounds were still 

 overflowed by the tides. The historical and topographical 

 interest of the locality is, however, not dependent on the 

 precise date of the reclamation. 



Beginning with the group of manors, or reputed manors, 

 in the parish of Sutton, we first find that Domesday Book 

 associates the Manor of Sudtone, held under the Lord of 

 Holderness, with a berewic held under the Archbishop's 

 College of St. John of Beverley. The owners of manor and 

 berewic had each his house with its enclosed land, but the 

 tillage and meadows of both were in narrow strips or in 

 plots, mixed together all over the area ; the manor consist- 

 ing of about three-fourths, and the berewic one-fourth of the 

 whole. In time, the berewic began to be called a manor, 

 and the manor itself became divided amongst many persons, 

 each of whom described his share as if it were the whole. 



