A VANISHING YORKSHIRE VILLAGE. 
57 
Spurn Point. Which lights were erected at the request of masters 
of ships using the Northern Trade ; who, in their petition to His 
Majesty, represented that a very broad, long sand, about six or 
seven months before, had been discovered to have been thrown up 
near the mouth of the river Humber, upon which they had had 
great losses, and by means whereof they sailed in great danger in 
the night ; and that having considered that lights erected upon 
the Spurn Point would in future prevent such danger, this had 
induced them to apply to Mr. Angell, as being the proprietor of 
the only piece of ground that was adapted to the purpose ; and 
who, at their request, had erected two lights thereon, which the 
petitioners found to be not only of great benefit, but an absolute 
safety to all navigators on that coast.” Smeaton says:— 
“The spot of ground called Spurn Point, seems to have under¬ 
gone great changes ; for in Camden’s time, about a century before 
the petition for the lights, there seems to have been no more than 
a pretty sharp head of land that did not extend far from Kilnsey 
and was then called Spurn Head.” 
Then Smeaton built a fine lighthouse upon piles at what is now 
a spot some half-a-mile or so from the actual “ Point ” ; but in the 
early nineties this edifice became unsafe and was pulled down, 
when the piles were found to be rotten and the huge superstructure 
had been simply resting upon these and rocking severely in every 
gale. (Plate II., Fig. a.) 
The present magnificent structure is some 200 feet high and 
stands upon a deep concrete base some 10 yards inland (if such an 
expression is allowable there) from old Smeaton’s site. 
The enormous stretches of mud, before alluded to, at low-water 
time form an ideal feeding ground for myriads of shore birds. No 
sooner does the tide begin to ebb than parties of birds, sometimes 
many thousands strong, make their way across from the Lincoln¬ 
shire coast, and topping the sand-hills of Spurn, or wheeling over 
and over it for awhile, finally descend to reap their harvest of 
small molluscs and sand-eels from the slimy ooze. Curlews, Red¬ 
shanks, Godwits, Turnstones, Knot, Grey Plover, Sanderlings, 
and Dunlin, all are there, though we incline to think in less 
enormous quantities than used to be the case. Out upon the 
waters of the Humber, Duck often congregate in large numbers, 
and are systematically hunted at flighting time by a most ingenious 
process. At low tide, a deep hole is dug a certain distance from 
dead-low water, into which first goes an armfull of straw, then a 
