2 



CORDEAUX : THE SPURN. 



Humber side of the fast narrowing promontory. In old maps and 

 records of Holderness are names of villages as Frismerk, Tharlethorpe, 

 Pottersfleet, Upsal, Redmayr, Pennysmerk, Hartburn, Auburn, Hyde 

 and others all now beneath the sea-bed."* Everywhere along this 

 lonely coast-line is waste and ruin ; no place so strong but in time 

 succumbs; frost, rain, and wave are the tools with which nature works 

 to undermine and carry off the solid land. Village church and 

 homestead ahke disappear, and the bones of the buried dead drop 

 from the shattered cliff to find a final resting place beneath the 

 waters of the wild north sea. 



The gravel, sand, and boulders of these fast-vanishing cliffs are 

 drifted southward and deposited in large quantities along the 

 promontory, which indeed owes its existence to the waste of 

 Holderness ; in itself, too. Spurn is constantly undergoing change, for 

 we find along the Lincolnshire coast beds of pebbles and water-worn 

 boulders which can only have been derived from the Yorkshire cliffs. 



Spurn is rich in memories of many races. The conquerors of 

 the world knew it well; they had a station at or near Patrington 

 {Prcetorium) from which a branch road {via vicinalis) ran to York, 

 and grain from Yorkshire cornfields was shipped from Spurn to the 

 Rhine and Gaul.f Roman remains have been found at Easington, 

 and we have seen a small bronze bull dredged up in the bay, which 

 perhaps once figured as the head of a military standard. The low 

 cliff east and west of Kilnsea contains seams — kitchen-middens — 

 made up of shells, bones and broken pottery, the latter apparently 

 used for cooking, of Brigantian or Romano- British workmanship ; 

 these have been turned on the wheel, and the dark clay, probably of 

 local origin, J mixed with coarsely pounded calc spar to give strength 

 and consistency to the vessel. Bones found in these localities are 

 generally those of the small British ox, Bos longifrons, represented by 

 the Welsh cattle of to-day, red deer, swine and wild boar,§ also 

 considerable quantities of oyster and mussel shells, and Helix 

 nenioralis^ the last no doubt also used as food. Coins, mostly 



* 'Tracks on Holderness.' Thos. Thompson, 1821. 



+ There is no mention made in the voyage of Pytheas of Massilia (circa 

 330 B.C.) of the Humber estuary, although it is apparent that this Humboldt of 

 his time coasted along the eastern shores of Britain on his return voyage from 

 Scandinavia and Ultima Thule. Ptolemy the geographer, who lived in the first 

 century after Christ, marks it on his chart as Abus Jlumen, and the point to the 

 north Ocelliwi protnontorittvi. 



\ The name Kilnsea is suggestive of ancient potteries, as is also Kilnwick near 

 Driffield and Kilnhurst near Rotherham. 



§ Recent examinations of the Holderness gravels have resulted in finding 

 remains of Bos prirnigenius, Cerviis 7?iegaceros, C. elaphiis, Rhinoceros and Trichems 

 ros7narits. 



Naturalist, 



