The tide may be out, and only puny
waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain
from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and
the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before
satisfying a fresh appetite.
The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour
and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely
disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place
called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven
acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres
remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from
Withernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until
1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the
eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and
a cloud of dust.
Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses
were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
Pages:
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238