HISTORY OF DECOYS ( continued ). | |
CHAPTER XV. | |
DECOYS IN THE COUNTY OF YORK. | |
| YORKSHIRE did not, like Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincoln, and Essex, boast many Decoys, as only a small area of its surface was adapted to attract wildfowl. This portion was Holderness, in the East Riding, a district bounded on the cast by the German Ocean, on the south by the Humber, on the west by the divisions of Hunsley and Bainton Beacon, and on the north by the wapentake of Dickering. Here were situated the principal Decoys of the county, in the valley of the River Hull. The fens of Holderness were 20 miles in length, and from 4 to 6 miles in breadth, and extended from 7 miles south of Bridlington to the estuary of the Humber towards Patrington and Hedon, widening in their course as they approached the tide. The drainage of these fens was first undertaken on the eastern side of the River Hull (where Meaux Decoy then flourished) in 1762, and an Act of Parliament was obtained to enable the promoters of the scheme to do so. Next came the "Beverley and Barmston Drainage Act," in 1798, parallel to the last but opposite, on the west side of the River Hull. Then, in 1800 the "Hertford and Derwent Drainage Act" still further reclaimed the low marsh lands that bordered on Holderness, and a short time previous to the last Act Spalding Moor, to the west of Holderness (on which was Holme Decoy), and Walling Fen were drained and cultivated by private enterprise. In all 50,000 acres of fen, at a cost of £190,000 were reclaimed in this division of Yorkshire. Excepting Holderness no part of the county in former times was resorted to by wildfowl in large numbers. | |
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