cede from Bridlington to Spurn, a distance of thirty-six miles, has
been found by measurement to equal on an average two and a quarter yards
annually, which, upon thirty-six miles of coast, would amount to about
thirty acres a year. At this rate, the coast, the mean height of which
above the sea is about forty feet, has lost one mile in breadth since
the Norman Conquest, and more than two miles since the occupation of
York (Eboracum) by the Romans."[400] The extent of this denudation, as
estimated by the number of cubic feet of matter removed annually, will
be again spoken of in chapter 22.

In the old maps of Yorkshire, we find spots, now sand-banks in the sea,
marked as the ancient sites of the towns and villages of Auburn,
Hartburn, and Hyde. "Of Hyde," says Pennant, "only the tradition is
left; and near the village of Hornsea, a street called Hornsea Beck has
long since been swallowed."[401] Owthorne and its church have also been
in great part destroyed, and the village of Kilnsea; but these places
are now removed farther inland. The annual rate of encroachment at
Owthorne for several years preceding 1830, is stated to have averaged
about four yards. Not unreasonable fears are entertained that at some
future time the Spurn Point will become an island, and that the ocean,
entering into the estuary of the Humber, will cause great
devastation.[402] Pennant, after speaking of the silting up of some
ancient ports in that estuary, observes, "But, in return, the sea has
made most ample reprisals; the site, and even the very names of several
places, once towns of note upon the Humber, are now only recorded in
history; and Ravensper was at one time a rival to Hull (Madox, Ant.
Exch. i. 422), and a port so very considerable in 1332, that Edward
Baliol and the confederated English barons sailed from hence to invade
Scotland; and Henry IV., in 1399, made choice of this port to land at,
to effect the deposal of Richard II.; yet the whole of this has long
since been devoured by the merciless ocean; extensive sands, dry at low
water, are to be seen in their stead."[403]

Pennant describes Spurn Head as a promontory in the form of a sickle,
and says the land, for some miles to the north, was "perpetually preyed
on by the fury of the German Sea, which devours whole acres at a time,
and exposes on the shores considerable quantities of beautiful amber."

_Lincolnshire._--The maritime district of Lincolnshire consists chiefly
of land