holderness

 

One of the strangest, yet beautiful, parts of Yorkshire is Holderness, a huge swathe of farmland, coast, with some of Britain’s finest beaches, market towns, ancient villages , and churches. this vast land has a feeling of lonely otherness, nestling as it does under expansive panoramic skies more at home in the Netherlands than east Yorkshire. The poet Phillip Larkin once wrote of Hull and Holderness

‘Behind Hull is the plain of Holderness, lonelier and lonelier, and after that the birds and lights of Spurn Head, and then the sea.’

a typical big Holderness sky over Mappleton

To travel down the coast roads under the big skies of this magical land is a joy and to the credit of the local east Yorkshire bus company regular services are maintained, however, every turning towards the sea invariably ends at a dead end.

Because we are losing Holderness to coastal erosion at a rate of around two metres a year. it is the fastest area of coastal erosion in Europe.

dramatic erosion at Skipsea

the end of the road at Aldborough

Aldborough

The cliffs of the Holderness coast are soft boulder clay or till, a vast terminal moraine deposited by glaciers in the last ice age. The relentless,  ferocious battering the cliffs receive from the north sea eat into the bottom of the soft boulder clay causing the cliff to collapse in almost controlled vertical sections. the sea spares nothing Roads, farmland, houses and even concrete world war two pill boxes tumble onto the beaches to be eventually engulfed by the mighty sea.

the erosion is a major problem for the farmers, villagers and caravan owners, yet little is being done to try and halt the forces of nature. The little seaside town of Hornsea built a series of wooden groynes in the 1900s to prevent long shore drift a factor in cliff erosion

Hornsea groyne

ironicaly life goes on caravan parks dot the coast and the crumbling cliffs. The beaches and the gentle much slower way of life are a great attraction to this lonely, charismatic part of Yorkshire. Away from the bigger towns of Hornsea and Withernsea the little villages do their best to carry on normal life

stained glass window double dutch pub

aldborough.

isolation aldborough

attic village

double dutch aldborough.

. But the threat from the sea is ever present some  of the smaller villages have become little more than hamlets and their is evidence of abandonment and decay along the coast

former amusements skipsea

old cottage aldborough