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King's Books at £6. 13s. 4d., augmented with £400. of Queen Anne's Bounty, and now worth £104. per ann. Tithes commuted in 1768. The present Vicar is the Rev. John Watson. The Edifice (St. Mary) is a venerable Gothic structure, and consists of a nave and aisles, chancel, and a low tower, with a modern brick porch on the south side. A spire, it is thought, once surmounted the tower. In the porch is an ancient niche, containing a mutilated statue of the Virgin and Child. The nave has a clerestory. In the interior the nave and aisles are divided by four pointed arches springing from octagonal columns. The top of the chancel arch is filled with boards, which rest on a neat oak screen, having good perpendicular tracery. The roofs are all open to the rafters. In the south aisle is a splendid monument, or shrine, in a state of dilapidation, supposed by some to have been removed from Burstall Priory, and to have belonged to one of the Albemarles; but there is no satisfactory evidence of this being the fact. It consists of a recess, made by a pointed arch, enriched with crockets, and the interior with groining. On each side is a buttress, terminating in an elegant niche, with a crocketed pediment and finial. The upper part of the monument has innumerable panels, loaded with foliage of great beauty. On the altar tomb, within the recess, is the effigy of a female in robes. Attached to the walls are several shields of arms, including those of England and Edward the Confessor; and at the side of the monument is a piscina. At the east end of the north aisle is a large floor stone, with brass effigies of "Willm. Wryght of Plewland Esqe. & Ann his wife." The latter died in 1618, and the former in 1621. In 1832 a stone coffin was exhumed from the chancel. The Village is situated about 14 mile from the Humber, and 2 miles S.E. of Patrington. An old Quakers' meeting house here is now used as a school. The Wesleyan chapel was erected in 1849; the site being given by Mr. J. Fewson; and it is fitted up with the furniture of the Quakers' chapel, which was given by the late Mr. Joseph Roberts. The Primitive Methodists have a small chapel here, built in 1848. The poor parishioners have the interest of £40. 10s., left by unknown donors.

Old Ploughland, or Plewland, seems to take its name from the quantity of land it contained, viz., a ploughland, hide, or carucate. This place was the property of the Wrights for many generations. Two of this family, John and Christopher Wright, were conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot. The property became divided, and a moiety of it, together with the old mansion house, was purchased by the present proprietor, Mr. David S. Burnham. The house, which appears to have been much larger, was the residence of the younger branches of the Crathornes.

Haverfield House, was built by Mr. Crathorne, about 1779. It stands on an eminence, and commands a fine view of the Humber, &c. Near it is a rookery. It is the property of the Rev. J. C. Clement, and residence of Mr. William Carlin, farmer.

New Plowland is a neat farm house, the property of Mr. J. Marwood, and residence of Mr. Joseph Roberts, farmer.

Thorpe Garth, or Welwick Thorpe, hamlet was for a long period the property of a family named Thorpe. It now belongs to Mr. Burnham and others. Weeton is a hamlet, consisting of five farm houses and a few cottages, situate about one mile S.E. from Welwick. It contains nearly 1,000 acres of land, and is still considered a manor, of which H. W. Askew, Esq., is the lord and principal proprietor.

Kelk. This manor was anciently in the family of De Kelk, and it now belongs to Mr. Joseph Roberts. Pensthorp and Orwithfleet were hamlets or townships situated on the shores of the Humber, in this parish, destroyed by inundations.

WINESTEAD. The manor of Winestead was held by the knightly family of Hilton for ten generations, until by a failure in the male line it devolved, by a coheiress, to the family of Hildyard about the time of Richard II. Sir Robert D'Arcy Hildyard, the last Baronet, dying, in 1814, without issue, bequeathed his estate to his niece, Anne Catherine Whyte, who married, in 1815, Thomas Thoroton, of Flintham Hall, in the county of Nottingham, who assumed the name and arms of Hildyard, in compliance with her uncle's will. Thomas Thoroton Blackburn Hildyard (Lord of the Manor), and Robert Hildyard, Esq., his brother, are the chief proprietors of the parish. Area, 2,570 acres; ratcable value, £2,400.; assessed property, £3,016.; population in 1851, 131 souls.

The Benefice is an ancient Rectory, formerly belonging to the Hiltons, and now in the patronage of the family of Hildyard. It is rated in the King's Books at £12., and now returned at £247. per annum. Rector, Rev. J. R. Whyte. The Church is an ancient building, surrounded by stately trees, and was repaired in 1829. It is composed of a nave and chancel, with a chantry chapel on the south side, which is the place of interment of the Hildyard family, This chantry was founded and endowed by Sir de Hilton, Lord of Swine, in 1347, the duty of the chaplain for the same being to celebrate at the altar of St. Mary the Virgin, for the soul of the founder, and those of Dame Margaret, his consort, his father and mother, &c. In the west end of the church, which rises to an apex, is a large pointed window of five lights, and the east end of the chancel has a mutilated window of three lights. The interior is neat but plain. Between the nave and chancel is a screen of five pointed arches, with perpendicular tracery. There is a small bell fixed in a receptacle on the west wall, having inscribed on it in old characters, "Joannes Baptista." The church contains several monuments to the Hildyard family; one of which is a handsome altar tomb, bearing the recumbent effigy of Sir Charles Hildyard, Knt., in plate armour, who died in 1602. In the chancel is a large stone, having brass effigies of a Knight and lady, with smaller brasses at their feet, representing their children kneeling, seven sons and six daughters, all mutilated. This is supposed to be the memorial of Sir Robert Hildyard, of Winestead, Knt., a person of great note during the Wars of the Roses, and commonly called Robin of Riddesdale, or Redesdale.

The Village is pleasantly situated in the midst of fine trees, about 2 miles N.W. of Patrington. The Rectory House is a respectable and substantial residence. A moated close, west of the church, is the site of the ancient mansion house of the Hildyards. In this moat Wm. Hildyard was drowned, and it is supposed the melancholy circumstance caused his father Sir Christopher to build a new hall, in 1579, at the northern extremity of the lordship. The house was again pulled down, and the present mansion, also called Winestead Hall, erected nearly on the site of the former building, by Sir Robert Hildyard, about the year 1710. It is a fine mansion, with beautiful pleasure grounds and gardens, but is seldom occupied by the Hildyards, to whom it belongs. It stands about one mile north of the village, and a little west of the church.

Winestead House, or Low Hall, is a handsome modern mansion, built by Col. Arthur Maister, who formerly had an estate here, which was purchased by Col. T. Hildyard in 1829. This house is also unoccupied at present.

Mrs. Ann Hildyard, spinster, sister to the late Sir D'Arcy Hildyard, by will, proved in 1813, bequeathed the sum of £800., interest to found a school here. The bequest being charged upon land, was declared void under the Mortmain Act; but the present Lord of the Manor, to carry out his relative's benevolent intention, allows a schoolmistress a house rent free, and a stipend of £20. a year, for teaching the poor children of the parish.

Andrew Marvel, the celebrated patriot, was the son of a former Rector of Winestead, and if born here was certainly in the parish church. (Sce p. 164.) LOST TOWNS.-The ravages of the sea and of the Humber on the shores of the peninsula of Holderness, have been so great in past ages, as to render it impossible, at the present time, to discover the foundations of several towns, which, from ancient records, are known to have existed in that part of Yorkshire. We have before observed that much of the low land

in Holderness was formerly under water, and that after the Conquest, Holderness was represented as an island. In many large tracts of lands which now adjoin the Humber, and the rivers which fall into it, the different strata of the earth show that great alterations have taken place on the surface of the country; and that in many places, the earth which is buried several feet deep, has once been the matrix of vegetable productions, and the habitation of animals; and that the superincumbent earth now under cultivation, has been brought to its present situation by the extraordinary flux of waters, or by other means of which history gives us no information.

RAVENSPURNE.-The most ancient place of fixed habitation in the southern part of Holderness, appears to have been called variously Ravenser, Ravensrode, Ravenspurne, and Ravensburgh. This town is now totally swallowed up by the Humber, and not the least mark of its existence can be discovered. Ravenspurne is supposed by some to have been the Pratorium of the Romans, and the place at which the Roman road from Beverley terminated, but this must ever remain a disputed point. There is no question though, about Ravenspurne having been a borough, port, and market town, of some consequence, and its situation appears to have been on the bank or margin of the Humber, within the Spurn Head, towards the south-east end of the Trinity Sands.

Mr. Thompson, in his Historic Facts relative to this place, thinks it probable that the Danes, when they landed at the first sea-port which they found in the Humber, would fix on it their national standard, which bore the figure of a raven, and call the place Ravensburgh. Afterwards, in more Christian times, a cross may have been erected there, and the termination burgh, the ancient Saxon name for a city, town, or fortified place, might be changed to rod or rode, a cross; and thus the name would be Ravensrode. Subsequently the termination Spurne, a place from which to explore, or look out, might be adopted, and hence the name of Ravenspurne. But there is much confusion in the notices of this place in ancient writings, owing to their being more places than one bearing the name of Ravenser; for it cannot be doubted that there were two distinct towns existing here at the same time, under the names of Old or Ald Ravenser and Ravensrod or Ravenser Odd. The former place is described as being in the parish of Kilnsea, and the latter in that of Easington. The Burgh of Odd was situated, as we have stated, between the sea and the river Humber, and was distant from the main land more than a mile. The access to it from Old Ravenser was by a sand road, covered with round yellow stones, and scarcely elevated above the sea. It was distant from Easington four miles, and between the two places stood the

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distinct towns of Kilnsea and Sunthorp, with the manor of Ald Ravenser. The history of Ravenser Odd is extremely singular, the short space of 150 years having witnessed its origin, its rise to celebrity as a sea port, and its final destruction by the encroachments of the sea. According to the Meaux Chronicle it was originally a small island, formed by an accidental accumulation of sand and stones, in the reign of Henry III., and was at first only used by the fishermen to dry their nets upon. In the reign of Edward I. Ravenser Odd began to assume the appearance of a commercial port, and it appears evident that it had sprung up as an offshot of Ald Ravenser. We must then presume that this is the place mentioned under the several names of Ravensrout, Ravensrod, Ravenserodd, Ravensrode, &c., for under these several names the port appears to have been designated. In 1299 the merchants, or men, of this place obtained a charter of free burgage from the King (See page 10), by which they were to have two markets every week within the burgh, and a fair every year, of thirty days duration. In the 8th of Edward II. (1315) the burgesses received a confirmation of their charter, and a grant of Kayage (the privilege of charging for wharfage) for seven years. In the 19th of the same reign the King appointed John de Barton and Richard de la Pole to collect the customs of wool within the ports of Hull and Ravensrood. In 1344 letters were addressed to the Bailiffs of Ravenser and Ravensrode, requiring one man, well versed in naval affairs, to be returned from each place, to attend a council in London for the purpose of ascertaining the maritime force of the country; a proof that both places were considered ports at one and the same time. In 1355 the Abbot of Meaux was directed to gather up the bodies of the dead which had been buried in the chapel yard of Ravenser, and which, by reason of inundations, were then washed up and uncovered, and to bury them in the churchyard of Easington. About 1357 the tides in the Humber flowed higher by four feet than usual, and no doubt Ravenser was then still more ruinously inundated. Dugdale, in his History of Imbanking and Draining, states the great increase in the height of the tides at this period, and adds "How long the tides upon this coast kept their course so much higher than they had formerly done, I am not able to say; but it is like that they did so for no short time after, there being scarce a year in the succeeding part of this King's (Richd. II.) reign, that one or more commissions were not issued for repairs of the banks, in some place or other upon this great river."

In 1361 the inhabitants of Ravenser were driven to flight by these overwhelming floods, and coming to Hull and other places, fixed their residence there. About 1390, when the Book of Meaux was written, there was

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