510 



ENCROACHMENTS OF THE SEA ON 



J 



[Ch. XX. 



Dimlington 



where they are decomposed by the salt spray, and slowly 

 crumble away. But the waste is most rapid between that 

 promontory and Spurn Point, or the coast of Holderness, as 

 it is called, a tract consisting of beds of clay, gravel, sand 

 and chalk rubble. The irregular intermixture of the argil- 

 laceous beds causes many springs to be thrown out, and this 

 facilitates the undermining process, the waves beating against 

 them, and a strong current setting chiefly from the north. 

 The wasteful action is very conspicuous at 

 Height, the loftiest point in Holderness, where the beacon 

 stands on a cliff 146 feet above high water, the whole being 

 composed of clay, with pebbles scattered through it.* ' For 

 many years/ says Professor Phillips, ' the rate at which the 

 cliffs recede from Bridlington to Spurn, a distance of thirty- 

 six miles, has been found by measurement to equal on an 

 average two and a quarter yards annually, which upon thirty- 

 six miles of coast would amount to about thirty acres a year. 

 At this rate, the coast, the mean height of which above the 

 sea is about forty feet, has lost one mile in breadth since the 

 Norman Conquest, and more than two miles since the occu- 

 pation of York (Eboracum) by the Romans /f The extent of 

 this denudation, as estimated by the number of cubic feet of 

 matter removed annually, will be again spoken of in Chapter 



In the old maps of Yorkshire, we find spots, now sand- 

 banks in the sea, marked as the ancient sites of the towns 

 and villages of Auburn, Hartburn, and Hyde. ' Of Hyde/ 

 says Pennant, ' only the tradition is left ; and near the vil- 

 lage of Hornsea, a street called Hornsea Beck has long since 

 been swallowed/ % Owthorne and its church have also been 

 in great part destroyed, and the village of Kilnsea ; but these 

 places are now removed farther inland. The annual rate of 

 encroachment at Owthorne for several years preceding 1830, 

 is stated to have averaged about four yards. Not unreason- 

 able fears are entertained that at some future time the Spurn 

 Point will become an island, and that the ocean, entering 



* Phillips's Geology of Yorkshire, 



p. 61. 



f Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-coast 



of Yorkshire, p. 122. 1853, London. 



\ Arctic /oology, vol. i. p. 10. In- 

 troduction. 









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