County in Yorkshire, England
East Yorkshire
East Yorkshire has a 3.5-mile sand spit that lifeboat crews once lived on, a port swallowed by the sea, and a church rabbit linked to Alice in Wonderland.
Key information
- County
- Yorkshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Flamborough Head, Bempton Cliffs, Spurn Point, Beverley Minster, the Humber Bridge and the Yorkshire Wolds
- What locals are called
- Yorkshire folk, with Hull residents known as Hullensians
- Famous people
- William Wilberforce, Amy Johnson, Andrew Marvell, William Bradley (the Giant of Market Weighton)
- Football clubs
- Hull City, Bridlington Town
About East Yorkshire
The county that is a third of Yorkshire
"Riding" sounds like something you do on a horse, but it comes from the Old Norse word for a third. Viking-era Yorkshire was split into three parts, and the East Riding is the one that faces the North Sea. The Vikings left their mark on the place names, with endings like -by and -thorpe all over the map. The landscape is a neat three-act play: chalk hills in the Wolds, flat farmland in Holderness, and the muddy edge of the Humber estuary to the south. The Humber Bridge links East Yorkshire to Lincolnshire. When it opened in 1981 its 1,410-metre main span was the longest of any suspension bridge in the world. You can still walk or cycle across it.
A rabbit in St Mary's and a saint on the Westwood
Beverley is a market town with a minster that rivals many cathedrals. Building ran from the 1220s to 1420, and the result is one of the great Gothic churches of Europe. It grew around the shrine of St John of Beverley, who died in 721 and whose tomb drew pilgrims for centuries. Inside the minster, look for the Frith Stool, a very old stone seat that offered sanctuary to people on the run. Elsewhere in Beverley, St Mary's Church contains a medieval carved stone rabbit that local tradition links to the White Rabbit in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Just outside town is the Westwood, open common land where local freemen have grazing rights for their cattle. Beverley Racecourse is laid out across the grass.
The coast that keeps disappearing
The Holderness coast is one of the fastest-eroding shorelines in Europe, because its soft boulder clay crumbles into the North Sea. Whole villages have gone over the centuries. The most dramatic loss was Ravenser Odd, a busy medieval port on a shifting sandbank at the mouth of the Humber. By the later 1300s it had been swallowed by the sea. Spurn Point, a thin sand spit about 3.5 miles long, reaches out into the estuary. It carried a lighthouse and a lifeboat crew who lived on the spit with their families until 2012, when crews moved to a rota system. A tidal surge in December 2013 broke through the spit and cut it in two.
Gannets, glory and a sea battle you could watch from the cliffs
Flamborough Head is a chalk headland with a lighthouse dating from 1806. In 1779 the American naval commander John Paul Jones fought the Royal Navy off these cliffs, in the Battle of Flamborough Head. His ship the Bonhomme Richard took on HMS Serapis, and the fight was watched from the shore. Next door, Bempton Cliffs is the best place on England's mainland to see gannets, puffins and thousands of other seabirds. Flamborough villagers once earned money as "climmers", lowering themselves down the cliffs on ropes to gather eggs. Flamborough also keeps up its own long sword dance. It is one of the region's oldest folk traditions, and part of the village's identity.
Wolds, giants and Hockney's big canvas
The Yorkshire Wolds are rolling chalk hills, and they inspired David Hockney's huge landscape paintings of the 2000s. He moved back to Yorkshire and painted the changing seasons around Bridlington and the Wolds. The Wolds also hold Wharram Percy, a deserted medieval village abandoned by about 1500, and grand houses such as Sledmere and Burton Agnes. Sledmere's war memorials are among the most striking in the county. Market Weighton produced a real-life giant. William Bradley, born in 1787, grew to 7 feet 9 inches and became a celebrity in his own lifetime.
Crab sandwiches, Yorkshire puddings and rugby league
This is Yorkshire, so a Yorkshire pudding is never far away. The coast adds its own specials, especially crab and lobster from Bridlington and Flamborough, best eaten near the harbour. Hull is the sporting heart of the area, with Hull City in football and two rugby league clubs, Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers, whose derby is one of the fiercest in the sport. Bridlington Town carry the football flag on the coast. Hull gave the world William Wilberforce, born there in 1759, and the aviator Amy Johnson, born in 1903, who flew solo from England to Australia in 1930. Andrew Marvell, the metaphysical poet, was born in Winestead in 1621 but grew up in Hull after his family moved there when he was a young child.
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Yorkshire Pudding
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Yorkshire pudding was designed to fill you up before the meat arrived, and a famous 2008 ruling said a proper one must stand at least four inches tall.