Yorkshire is vanishing up to three times as fast as last year

A dry spring and soggy summer are being attributed for sharply increased coastal erosion along the
eastern flank in Yorkshire which borders the North Sea.
Just in time before more rain fell, engineers from the East Riding of Yorkshire district council have
been out along their stretch of collapsing cliffs south of Bridlington where the solid rock walls which
culminate in Flamborough Head come to a finish.
Utilizing a back pack satnav which plots their course, the team are surveying the present 'last of
Yorkshire' and comparing it with where the county ended a year ago. The results fluctuate but in
areas the county has lost a startling 7m (22ft) compared to annual average of 1.7m (5.5ft).
As a consequence, more properties which now all but teeter above the seashore below have been
added to the record of dwellings no longer considered safe. Retired couples in Aldborough, 10km
(6.2mls) south of Hornsea face almost sure evacuation before next summer. Ten houses were
abandoned last year, their plots going the way of the three local hotels - the Talbot, the Spa as well
as the Royal - whose remains are now underneath the sea.
In proportion to the loss in acreage, the East Riding has got a pile of information that is really
approachably available online here. Last year, the number of surveys and monitoring was joined by
the primary mapping that was seabed that was accurate off Holderness, the southern stretch of the
shore which ends in the delicate - and up to now indestructible - hook of Spurn point.
What could be done is moot. Really heavy defences hold the line at major towns such as Hornsea and
Withernsea and the North Sea gas terminal at Easington, near Spurn, but likely at the expense of
increased erosion on neighbouring expanses that are unprotected. The remainder is almost surely
doomed, at a slow but irresistible speed. To create the point, as well as for possible use in pub
quizzes or for Carol Ann Duffy or Simon Armitage to use in a poem engraved on one of our wild
fellsides, this is an inventory of the towns which have gone.
That comes courtesy of The Lost Towns of the Yorkshire Coast by Thomas Sheppard which was
published in 1912. His map shows the current Aldborough, whose streets are now toppling on the
edge, very comfortably inland.
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The eroding area is formed of boulder clay which will be particularly exposed to weather and sea
attrition if it quite rapidly becomes wet and then dries - the states seen this season.
The consolation, Sheppard points out, is that much of the debris in the shore is washed into and
round Spurn Point the Humber, augmenting the fragile-seeming peninsular and creating new land
from the estuary in the locale of Sunk Island. Some farms in the fascinating bulge on the Yorkshire
bank of the Humber have crowns on their walls, reminders that property which returned in the sea
was previously claimed by the monarch.
Now it belongs to whoever possesses the neighbouring expanse of shore. Sunk Island could be an
excellent spot to go if you're driven out of Aldborough or neighbouring towns.