HORNSEA MERE
Is the largest of the natural lakes of Yorkshire. It is well stocked with fish, and wild-fowl are numerous on its islets and marshy shores.
and stakes fixed to mark the limits of the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the Mere.
Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between the western ends of the aisles. It chiefly dates from Decorated times, with Perpendicular windows inserted. A fine alabaster altar-tomb under one of the arches of the south arcade has been terribly maltreated, and only a few words of the inscription running round the top slab are legible. We have no difficulty in reading the words ‘Hic jacet Magister Antonius de,’ and, with the help of Poulson, discover that this is the tomb of Anthony St. Quintin, who died in 1430, and was the last rector. It is the only tomb I have seen defaced with the outlines of shoes cut upon its surface. A wooden trap-door in the chancel opens into a small crypt consisting of two barrel vaults of brick with stone below. A recess on the north side appears to be a fireplace. An eighteenth-century parish clerk utilized this crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic seizure of which he died.
By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in this new position and supplied with a modern head.
As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before satisfying a fresh appetite.
The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from Withernsea, is pathetic. For a number of years the church remained on the verge of the cliff, in the same way as the ruins of the last church of Dunwich, in Suffolk, stand to-day. The graveyard was steadily destroyed, until 1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and a cloud of dust. When the sea went down, the shore was found littered with debris, and among the coffins there was one believed to be that of the founder. The body had been embalmed with fragrant spices and aromatics, which, even after exposure to the air, had not lost their original odour.
Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the churchyard left, and in 1844 the Vicarage and the remaining houses were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
The old village of Withernsea, no doubt, disappeared in a similar fashion. For the modern town we feel pity more than indignation. It consists of a haphazard collection of ugly lodging-houses, a modern church and a conspicuous lighthouse, whose revolving light glares into the windows of half the houses in the town, making sleep impossible. The place seems consciously at war with the ocean, and gazes ruefully at the remains of its iron pier, a limb that was savagely handled by the sea some years ago. No doubt the frail sea-wall will crumble away before long, and the depressing houses will then follow rapidly.