Yorkshire Vales and Wolds

by Gordon Home

At the point where the chalk cliffs disappear and the low coast of Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and even now there are two towns—the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish, place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the ‘Three Towns’ of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide parades, all those ‘attractions’ which exercise their potential energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks, refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switch-back railway, and even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused, and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden sand.

The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque. In northerly gales the harbour is the only place of refuge between Harwich and Leith for ships going northwards, owing to the shelter of Flamborough Head and the good anchorage of the sandy bay. It is due to its favoured position under these circumstances that Bridlington has enjoyed a well-protected harbour for sixty years.

In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however, conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25, 1642. It describes how, after two days’ riding at anchor, the cavalry arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.

‘God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within twenty paces of Her. We in the end gained the Ditch, and staid there two houres, whilest their Cannon plaid all the time upon us; the bullets flew for the most part over our heads, Some few onely grazing on the Ditch where the Queene was, covered us with earth.’

This bombardment only ceased when the Dutch Admiral sent to the Parliamentary ships to tell them that if they did not cease firing, he would consider them as enemies, and give order for his own vessels to open fire upon them. The tardiness of this action was explained by the Admiral as being due to the mist.

‘Upon that they staid their shooting, and likewise being ebbing water, they could not stay longer neare the shore. As soone as they were retired, the Queene returned to the house where She lay, being unwilling to allow them the vanity of saying, They made Her forsake the Towne. We went at noone to Burlington, whither we were resolved to goe before this accident; and all that day in face of the enemie we disimbarqued our Ammunition. It is said that one of the Captaines of the Parliament Ships had been at the Towne before us, to observe where the Queene’s lodging was; and I assure you he observed it well, for he ever shot at it.’

A Parliamentary tract of the same time says that when Charles I., who was at Oxford, heard of his consort’s escape, he is said to have remarked that ‘the shipmen did not shoote at her, but onely tryed how neere they could goe and misse, as good marksmen use to do.’ This would have been poor comfort, even if such knowledge had reached the Queen, as she crouched in the ditch showered with earth from the flying cannon-balls.

In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery. They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any real charm in the domestic architecture of the streets. Everywhere you look the houses are commonplace and without individuality. This example of early work is therefore isolated in its medievalism, in contrast to the bars of York, which are surrounded by early types of houses in keeping with their antiquity. The Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful, outline. At the west end, between the towers, is a large Perpendicular window occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.

The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is merely a portion of the nave separated with screens. One of the most interesting of the monuments is the grave slab of Prior Robert Burstwick, who died in 1493, and whose coffin was found in 1821 in the ground where the south transept formerly stood. The prior’s beard and the cloth his body had been wrapped in were found to be undecayed.