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East Riding of Yorkshire

County of England

  • 29 min read
  • 12 chapters
Flamborough Head
Scott Robinson · CC BY-SA 2.0

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The county has an area of 2,479 km2 (957 sq mi) and an estimated population of 631,285 in 2024. Kingston upon Hull, in the south-centre of the county on the Humber Estuary, is a major port and the county's economic and transport centre. The rest of the county is largely rural, and the next largest towns are the seaside resort of Bridlington on the north-east coast and the historic town of Beverley near the centre. The county is governed by two unitary authorities, East Riding of Yorkshire Council and Hull City Council, both of which since 2025 co-operate under a combined authority, the Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority with a mayor, using the name Hull and East Yorkshire. The county takes its name from the East Riding, an historic subdivision of Yorkshire.

In the east of the county the low-lying plain of Holderness is enclosed by a crescent of low chalk hills, the Yorkshire Wolds. The Wolds meet the sea at Flamborough Head, a chalk headland, while the Holderness coast to the south is characterised by clay cliffs. The west of the county is part of the Vale of York, the wide plain of the River Ure/Ouse, and the south-west is part of the Humberhead Levels.

History

Prehistoric

When the last glacial period ended, the hunter gatherers of the Palaeolithic period followed the animal herds across the land between continental Europe and Britain. Then, as conditions continued to improve and vegetation could support a greater diversity of animals, the annual range of seasonal movement by Mesolithic communities decreased, and people became more fixed to particular localities. Until about 6000 BC, Mesolithic people appear to have exploited their environment as they found it. As communities came to rely on a smaller territorial range and as population levels increased, they started to try to modify or control the natural world. In the Great Wold Valley, pollen samples of Mesolithic date indicate that the forest cover in the area was being disturbed and altered by man, and that open grasslands were being created. The Yorkshire Wolds became a major focus for human settlement during the Neolithic period as they had a wide range of natural resources. The oldest monuments found on the Wolds are the Neolithic long barrows and round barrows. Two earthen long barrows in the region are found at Fordon, on Willerby Wold, and at Kilham, near Driffield, both of which have radiocarbon dates of around 3700 BC.

From around 2000 to 800 BC, the people of the Bronze Age built the 1,400 Bronze Age round barrows that are known to exist on the Yorkshire Wolds. These are found both in isolation and grouped together to form cemeteries. Many of these sites can still be seen as prominent features in the present-day landscape. By the later Bronze Age, an open, cleared, landscape predominated on the Wolds. It was used for grazing and also for arable cultivation. The wetlands on either side of the Wolds in the River Hull valley, Holderness and the Vale of York were also being used for animal rearing at this time. In the Iron Age there were further cultural changes in the area. There emerged a distinctive local tradition known as the Arras Culture, named after a site at Arras, near Market Weighton. There are similarities between the chariot burials of the Arras Culture and groups of La Tène burials in northern Europe, where the burial of carts was also practiced.

Brythonic, Latin and Germanic

The area became the kingdom of the tribe known as the Parisi. After invading Britain in AD 43, the Romans crossed the Humber Estuary in AD 71 to invade the Parisi tribe's territory. From their bridgehead at Petuaria they travelled northwards and built roads along the Wolds to Derventio, present-day Malton, and then westwards to the River Ouse where they built the fort of Eboracum. There is evidence of extensive use of the light soils of the Wolds for grain farming in the Roman era. Several Roman villas which were the centres of large agricultural estates have been identified around Langton and Rudston. In the low-lying lands on either side of the Wolds there was an increase in the number of settlements between 500 BC and AD 500, as the land became drier and more accessible due to a fall in sea level. The lower-lying land was used for stock breeding. During the last years of Roman Britain, Anglo-Saxon raiders were troubling the area. After the Romans, the Brythonic-speaking area became known as Deira.

By the second half of the 5th century, the continued settlement by the Angles caused a shift to Old English. Deira merged into Northumbria and village names containing the Anglian elements -ing, -ingham or -ham started to be found in settlement names. As Christianity was established in the area from the 7th century onwards, several cemeteries like the one at Garton on the Wolds show evidence of the abandonment of pagan burial practices. In AD 867, the Great Danish Army captured the Anglian town of York. The remnants of the army settled from AD 876 as their leader Halfdan shared out the land. The Danish consolidated the area into the Kingdom of Jorvik, Danelaw then the Norse North Sea Empire. Scandinavian settlement names started to be found, such as -by and -thorpe. Scandinavian rule in the area came to an end in AD 954 with the death of Eric Bloodaxe.

Medieval

After the Norman Conquest of England by William the Conqueror in AD 1066, land across England was granted to followers of the new Norman king and ecclesiastical institutions. When some of the northern earls rebelled, William retaliated with the Harrying of the North which laid waste to many northern villages. The land was then distributed among powerful barons, such as the Count of Aumale in Holderness and the Percy family in the Wolds and the Vale of York. These lay lords and ecclesiastical institutions, including the monasteries, continued to improve and drain their holdings throughout the Middle Ages to maximise the rents they could charge for them. The governance structure in the Domesday survey of 1086 was Yorkshire, its ridings and Wapentakes—the latter two remnants of the Norse structure.

In the mid-16th century Henry VIII of England dissolved the monasteries, resulting in the large areas of land owned by Meaux Abbey, Bridlington Priory and other monastic holdings being confiscated. The Crown subsequently sold these large tracts of land into private ownership. Along with the land already belonging to lay owners, they formed some of the vast estate holdings which continued to exist in the Riding until the 20th century.

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