rness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is
nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its
featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.
The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power
to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of
gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries,
and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with
all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we
come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of
breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished
villages of Auburn and Hartburn.

From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance
to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the
lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer
that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having
practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary,
and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded
by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists
on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on
the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once
crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece
of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later
opinion labels them post-Conquest.[1] In the time of the Domesday
Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a
Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and
received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the
King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for
some reason seen fit to poison her, he fled from England, it is said,
during the last few months of William's reign. The Barony of Holderness
was forfeited, but Drogo was never captured.

[Footnote 1: A worked flint was found in the moat not long ago by Dr.
J. L. Kirk, of Pickering.]

Poulson, the historian of Holderness, states that Henry III. gave
orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of
Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When
Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion
Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl
of Cornwall, he presented this il