Grimston Garth (no picture available), now close to the boulder clay cliff-top in south/central Holderness is described by David Neave (s.p.b.) as ‘the most charming of Georgian Gothic houses’ (p.445). Built in the 1780s as a ‘summer residence’ for a large landowning family of the Yorkshire Wolds it is, like the properties in Winestead (s.p.b.) not open to the public, especially so her as Grimston Garth is owned by a firm that breeds animals for medical and commercial product testing and, as such, has been targeted by animal welfare groups.
It is interesting to wonder how the government’s proposed National Coastal Path will deal with this sort of situation – indeed how it will deal with the whole of the Holderness coast – as the cliff-tops can only be walked where local farmers do not bother to plant up to the cliff-top knowing that coastal erosion is certain. To propose that walkers walk the beach (rather than the cliff-top) would be an unsatisfactory compromise as to do so is fine only so long as one is fully aware of the tide times as to be trapped at the base of the cliffs at high tide is to be in a very dangerous situation.
Grimston Garth has a most individual ground-plan having a hexagonal dining room within a triangle which has an embattled tower at each of the three angles, adjoining are two rows of service rooms either side of an outer courtyard. Again, as with so many others, this property retains a large stable-block, here a range of single-storey spaces around a central courtyard. The grounds were landscaped in the 1760s, much of the tree planting surviving, this including a shelter belt around the house. The house is not visible from the road.
The plans for the section of the National Coast Path immediately around the Humber Estuary are being progressed by the four relevant unitary authorities although here the public rights of way mostly already exist. The Path will only go inland as far as the Humber Bridge.