EAST YORKSHIRE - Lee Patrick Wilson

The County of East Yorkshire is a mainly agricultural landscape, located East of York within Yorkshire and is bordered by the North Sea coast to the East, the Humber Estuary to the South and North Yorkshire to the West.

Due to its isolated geography the County of East Yorkshire has a real unique character of its own, with Kingston Upon Hull as its major City, Market towns of Driffield, Beverley & Market Weighton laying at its heart and countless other quaint individual towns & villages scattered throughout the county. Along with coastal fishing & tourism towns along the North Sea Coast and a rich history of Human occupation which reaches through the ages.

A line of chalk ridge hills arches through the centre of East Yorkshire; The Yorkshire Wolds which extend from North Ferriby on the Humber through to Bempton Cliffs on the North Sea coast, slightly North of the fishing & seaside town of Bridlington. From these raised chalk hills the Wold Valleys extend across the county. To the East of the Wolds are low lying flatlands of Holderness with mile after mile of country roads, farmland & scenic villages until the ever diminishing Holderness coast is reached where the unrelenting North Sea batters the brown cliffs of glacial boulder clay every day taking back the land to sea and reducing the size of the county. West of the wolds lay an abundance of historic towns and villages, scenic drives, footpaths and bridleways to be explored.

As a native to the county I find the region as a whole is largely undervalued and unknown on a wider tourism scale other than local tourism from the Yorkshire region with tourism generally centred on the North Sea coast, as it offers mile after mile of clean sea & beaches with beautiful coastal towns which have mixed identities of modern and old. Remnants of ages long passed show human occupation of this ancient landscape to the far reaches of Modern Man, modern construction of concrete and pebble dash mixed with Victorian architecture can be found along the coast, scattered across the beaches and cliffs of the North Sea coast concrete bunkers & lookouts from WW2 can still be seen reflecting the struggles of the past, at Bridlington bay and the chalk headland of Flamborough a massive engineering project of pre historic man quite probably pre dating the great pyramids of Giza can be seen at Danes Dyke where a manmade trench breaks through the land from the beach of Bridlington cutting the headland into two with mystery surrounding its purpose.

The county has more to offer than coast and seaside towns alone and should be celebrated & renowned deservedly to a global audience both along and away from the coast.

Tourism & travel is hugely popular globally and visiting new places is high on most peoples agenda, yet with growing numbers of global tourists main stay locations are been over saturated by tourism, popular places have quickly become overcrowded and distorted due to tourist over use, to the point where local populations are actually protesting against tourism.

For this project I aim to explore the character of the East Riding region, historically to present, capturing its abundant scenic places and really celebrating the place which I consider to be as beautiful, unique and individual as any other location the world over. I hope that this project will encourage local residents to see the county they call home in a new light & appreciate the land they live and all it has to offer and not feel the need to escape with the jet set to main stay tourism spots as most of us commonly do.

I would like to showcase the county as a real destination of interest to visit within the UK and help show the county to the wider world, after all every exotic destination is home to someone, and our home county East Yorkshire is another lands exotic destination and has a great deal to offer to overseas tourists wanting a real taste of British culture past and present.

With green & yellow fields of the East Yorkshire county sitting under blue and cloudy skies, the northern seasons change the landscape; green, golden, stripped bare, then covered with white frost & snow, rain and sleet, warm wind, cold wind, calm crisp days with frozen breath, golden sunshine, fiery reddened golden sunrises and long lingering summer sunsets;

Blustering strolls along hard sandy golden long reaching beaches which run as far as the eye can see, at low tide the sea bed can be walked upon hundreds of metres out to sea, the seaside full of day trippers taking in the warm summer sun, walking the sea fronts with fish & chips, donuts, waffles & ice cream. Deck chairs surrounded by makeshift camps of multi coloured wind breaks which lay spread out amongst the vast beaches, kites are flown with picnics in the park, summer fairs and village events, scarecrow dressing, town festivals, folk songs are sung. Campsites over flow with tents of all sizes, four seasons in one day; rain, wind, cloud and lots of sunshine, caravans line together row after row, the low sound of conversation & laughter flows long into the night, bacon sandwiches fill the morning air. Across the county pub beer gardens fill with sun reddened revellers enjoying amber ales and golden ciders under the backdrop of summer sunsets that extend over an entire evening with red & orange skies.

The crisp cold waters of the north sea bravely paddled and swam in summer, by autumn storms batter the coastline with wave after wave hitting stone seawalls surrounded by an audience of cars filled with eager spectators eating hot fish and chips washed down with flasks of tea. The countryside turns a golden orange as the summer growth dies off, leaves fall along with large green seeds of the horse chestnut tree, eagerly picked up by children shelling the green spiky covering to reveal large brown conker seeds found within, pickled and strung for conker whacking. Old timber is collected and piled in fields, gardens and road sides, stacked high ready to light on bonfire night, the night filled with damp cold winter air, the smell of fire, hot chocolate, warm mulled wine, crispy jacket potatoes and sweet onions over hotdogs warm the night, as thousands of people gather watching huge firework displays, lacklustre garden fireworks fill the night skies with explosions of rockets cracking in the night, Catherine wheels spin and whine, traffic lights green, amber and red illuminate gardens filled with cheery faces of family and friends, sparklers and gun powder fill the night as the gun powder plot 400 years before is remembered.

The many country paths and bridleways crunch under foot as winter ice cracks over shallow frozen puddles and mud tracks as ramblers seeking adventure and connection to the wild enjoy winter walks on ice cold days followed by warming in front of a log fire in a country pub, eating Sunday dinners of hot filled pie and mashed potato lavished in thick hot gravy and pints of real ale to warm the soul in the dark winter days.

Winter comes and homes are decorated with lights galore, main streets sitting in dark days and nights are adorned with multi coloured cosy lighting draped across the road from building to building, large Christmas trees are erected and dressed adorned with fairy lights and angels ready to illuminate the winter streets with a warm glow of winter cheer, as crowds gather to celebrate the lights been turned on sharing rich foods, fare and merriment for the start of the yule season celebrated as it has been for thousands of years into an age long forgotten whilst its traditions live on.

The winter draws long into February and the cold really settles in, with cold bright days blessed with rays of winter sun, sporadic snow fall and the occasional winter covering of snow when the hills and fields of the county are littered with families and children sledding the hills on sledges of all kinds from plastic sheets & rubber rings to metal rail sleds & skies.

Until the first break of spring when the rains fall heavy and the days grow lighter and the fields, trees and hedges come back to life again. A collective clean up gets underway, garden furniture is uncovered and garages emptied readying for the new summer ahead.

The seasons have been enjoyed in this bountiful country for thousands of summers, there exists abundant evidence of pre historic Human occupation across East Yorkshire with archaeological finds dating back some 4000 years or more, with ancient burial and ritual sites located throughout the region and possibly many more that lay undiscovered. The Monolith at Rudston, long barrows, curses, earthworks & henges are all found around the region along with the ancient Ferriby Boats and the Hasholme Logboat all carbon dated circa 2000BC. The East Yorkshire region provided pre historic man with bountiful wetlands & lakes, before modern drainage was installed the region comprised an interconnecting network of natural waterways linking the length and breadth of the land from sea to central inland areas, rich agricultural soil and all important resource of abundant fresh clean water. For these evidenced communities of Neolithic peoples to have inhabited the region it can be reasoned that Humans must have first settled in the East Riding much earlier than 4000 years ago, these archaeological finds collectively evidence a complex organised society which can be reasoned would have taken many generations and thousands of years to have evolved.

At the time of the Roman occupation of Britain some 2000 years ago, the Romans recorded the East Yorkshire tribe of people as been titled the Parisi and where regarded by the Romans as a tribe of great sea navigators and warriors.

The Romans although respecting the skills of the ancient British Tribes to some degree, in record mainly portray a land of primitive savages, yet contrary to Roman records artefacts left behind by the East Yorkshire regions ancient people are in abundance throughout the county and perhaps many still lay undiscovered. These artefacts suggest a complex, creative, skilful and highly evolved community of people living sustainably and harmoniously with the land and where simply over taken by the more powerful collective force of the Roman Empire and its army, perhaps in the same way the native Australians, Americans and African peoples where decimated 1600 hundred years later.

Little is recorded about the Parisi but it is known that they occupied the land of East Yorkshire and navigated the Humber, Wolds, River Hull Valley & North Sea coast for thousands of years & shared commonality of language and customs of the Celtic Tribes across Europe, with traditions very similar to those found in Northern France suggesting a mixed culture had evolved extending from Europe into the far reaches of Northern Britain, the region now known as East Yorkshire playing a pivotal part of transport & trade for these ancient people. The Humber been a gateway river from Europe into Northern England with its 8 major tributaries (Ouse, Hull, Derwent, Wharfe, Aire, Don, Trent & Ancholme) linking as far south west as Stoke on The River Trent and North via the River Ouse & Derwent to York into North Yorkshire, the Pennines & the Lake District.

The region was covered in Polar Ice for thousands of years & re exposed and ventured again as glacial polar ice retreated at the end of the last ice age, with ice sheets retreating from Europe some 20,000 years ago and specifically Britain around 14,000 years ago, our ancient human ancestors once again explored and roamed the region around this time using logboats and other early water craft to navigate these newly exposed lands journeying up the lakes and rivers of Doggerland which the North sea now covers, onto the Humber and ancient River Hull Valley and finding the Wolds Valleys. At first existing migratory with the seasons and later as the winters eased, settling in the region, utilising the chalk and flint which is found in abundance on the Wolds making advances in stone age tools & weaponry perhaps forming the first industry exporting stone age goods throughout Britain and Europe, the goods & technology advancing the regions people as population grew, work load eased & working together the collective ancient people could then make the relics, monuments & engineering projects which adorn the landscape today.

For this project along with showing the beauty of the county I hope to inform myself and bring to light the History of East Yorkshire region and its people through the ages including today, to understand where I live and where I come from and I hope you can also enjoy this journey with me. Perhaps people in the future will look at my photos and see how we lived in this time, which by then is long by gone, in the river of time joining the ancient people before us.