The volume tells the stories of eighteen parishes in the southern part of Holderness wapentake, the wedge of Yorkshire between the North Sea and the Humber. The low--lying landscape has changed repeatedly during the historical period, with lands along the north bank of the Humber being washed away or growing, lesser watercourses silting up, new drains being made, the steady erosion of the cliff along the sea coast, and the cyclical breaching, destruction, and redeposit of the long spit of land at Spurn Head. The church of Kilnsea and several small settlements have gone with the receding...

Beverley stood high among the provincial towns of medieval England, with the great minster church and the college of St. John. Linked with the port of Hull and the Humber by a canalized beck and the navigable river Hull, it had a thriving trade in cloth and wool. Around the town lay large common pastures which are still a prominent feature of the landscape, and beyond the borough half a dozen townships were within the liberties of Beverley. The decline of trade in the 15th century and the suppression of the college in 1548 reduced the town's prosperity, and its role in the 16th and 17th...

The volume covers a large area at the southern end of the Yorkshire Welds, lying west of the city of Hull and the town of Beverley. It is concerned with the history of fourteen parishes which comprise the greater part of the Hunsley Beacon division of Harthill wapentake. Though the rolling chalk hills of the wolds dominate the area, several of the parishes extend into the low- lying ground of the Hull valley to the east and the Vale of York to the west. In South Cave parish the reclamation of Broomfleet Island from the river Humber adds further variety to the agricultural history of the area....