Boyle (s.p.b.) quotes from the Meaux Abbey Chronicle to the effect that in the 1240s ‘the sea inundated and passed over its coasts almost throughout the whole eastern part of England; and the Humber exceeding its limits’ with the result that in the manor of Tharlsthorp the land was ‘decreased’ and the grange (farm) buildings there ‘consumed’.
As is usual medieval primary sources of evidence are mainly concerned with property and land transactions so it is with the Meaux Abbey Chronicle and Boyle’s account makes it clear that much land remained in the manor of Tharlesthorp into the late 13th century, although the use of the term ‘saltings’ suggests that the remaining land was more valuable for grazing than as arable land.
It was in the 1290s that king Edward I became increasingly interested in acquiring ‘Wyk and Myton as a royal port’. Boyle, on pages 69-71, relates details of the posturing to gain maximum profit from such a series of transactions, the manor of Tharlesthorp figuring.
However, as seen in the blog on Ravenser Odd (s.p.b.s), flooding again occurred in the second quarter of the 14th century. Clearly the maintenance of the clay-banks along the south bank of the Humber was a matter of great concern and it was often the monarch, e.g. Edward III in 1342, who appointed ‘commissioners’ to examine and repair the clay-banks (these men did not literally do the work themselves but rather used funds placed at their disposal to employ local labour at day-rates).
Abbot Burton’s ‘Chronicles’ written in the early 15th century and as studied by Boyle tell that by the late 14th century there were ‘habitual inundations of the Humber’, these ‘wasting’ the Meaux Abbey lands at Tharlesthorp and that, despite their best efforts, the land of Tharlesthorp grange was ‘hopelessly carried away’.
At an ‘inquisition’ at Hedon in 1401 it was recorded that the annual value of land lost to marine erosion at Tharlesthorp had been £123 (14th century value).
(to be continued).