From: Yorkshire - The East Riding by Geoffrey N. Wright, published 1976, pages 70, and 73-74: "A road leads south from Patrington towards the flattest landscape in Yorkshire. Sunk Island is a parish created in 1831, the outcome of centuries of reclamation of siltlands from the Humber. Today, no part of Sunk Island is more than 15 feet above sea level; large rectangular fields, flanked by drains, grow fine cereal crops. Hedgerow elms stand sentinel against the low skyline, and the few scattered farms have names as uncompromising as the sombre scenery - East Bank, Stone Creek, Channel, White House, West, Newlands and Outstray - each established over 100 years ago, though some may well have occupied sites used centuries earlier. The next few paragraphs report about how the silt built up in this area, about the great storm in 1256, and how the farmland was developed. It continues.................. "Indeed, in 1695, 13 acres of Sunk Sands were embanked to create the nucleus of Sunk Island, and the havens were beginning to silt up. "By 1742 the sands covered about 2,000 acres, and extended for a length of two miles. William CONSTABLE, of Burton Constable, initiated serious attemps at draining the sands of Cherry Cobb and Sunk Island. The work was completed in 1770. Sunk Island continued to grow westwards so that by 1800 the two islands were joined by sandbanks and mudflats, and in 1831 the new parish of Sunk Island was created as part of the Holderness mainland - 6,000 acres of rich soil, well-drained and full of promise. "Sunk Island is a Crown estate. Some of its 15 farms, as well as many of the cottages, carry a 'V.R.' monogram, and often a crown, on their front walls, together with a date, usually in the 1850s when most of the building was carried out. The familiar red brick of Holderness was used together with slate for the roofs. Some of the houses have strange gables, one pair of cottages near the church seems to be an early 'semi-detached,' and the very plain church was built in 1877. "No road runs eastwards or westwards from Sunk Island. The Winestead Drain and the Keyingham Drain, cut in the late 18th century, are not bridged in their lower sections. So Sunk Island is still, in a way, an island, where the roads go through right-angled bends......................" If anyone would like further info, please let me know. Barbara, Auckland, New Zealand

Thanx Barbara for posting this great bit of geography on the list. If others have more articles that would help us to understand the lives of our ancestors we would all benefit. Kind of you to take the time! June BC Canada ----- Original Message ----- From: "BARBARA MANSELL" <barbara.mansell@xtra.co.nz> To: <ENG-EAST-YORKS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 2:32 PM Subject: [ERY] SUNK ISLAND > From: Yorkshire - The East Riding by Geoffrey N. Wright, published 1976, pages 70, and 73-74: > > "A road leads south from Patrington towards the flattest landscape in Yorkshire. Sunk Island is a parish created in 1831, the outcome of centuries of reclamation of siltlands from the Humber. Today, no part of Sunk Island is more than 15 feet above sea level; large rectangular fields, flanked by drains, grow fine cereal crops. Hedgerow elms stand sentinel against the low skyline, and the few scattered farms have names as uncompromising as the sombre scenery - East Bank, Stone Creek, Channel, White House, West, Newlands and Outstray - each established over 100 years ago, though some may well have occupied sites used centuries earlier. <SNIP> > "No road runs eastwards or westwards from Sunk Island. The Winestead Drain and the Keyingham Drain, cut in the late 18th century, are not bridged in their lower sections. So Sunk Island is still, in a way, an island, where the roads go through right-angled bends......................" > > If anyone would like further info, please let me know. > Barbara, Auckland, New Zealand ______________________________