York East Riding II This volume contains the history of the 30 parishes that formed the wapentake of Dickering. The area lies largely upon the chalk hills of the Yorkshire Wolds, which here meet the sea in the impressive cliffs around Flamborough Head, but the wapentake also extended into the Vale of Pickering and the Plain of Holderness. There is thus a variety of landscape and agricultural history to describe. Much of the rolling wold land was occupied by open fields and sheep- walks until inclosure in the later 18th and earlier 19th centuries opened the way to improvement; on the lower ground much early inclosure took place, too. A dozen villages in the wapentake were depopulated in the Middle Ages. Most of the settlements are relatively small, but they include the one-time market town of Kilham and the seaside resorts of Bridlington and Filey. In the Middle Ages the 'old town' of Bridlington, with its priory and market-place, and the fishing village beside the harbour were quite separate, but with the growth of the resort of 'Bridlington Quay' from the late 18th century onwards they have been absorbed into a wide-spreading town. Bridlington has also had an interesting coastal and oversea trade and still supports a fishing fleet. The resort of 'New Filey' was established later, laid out near the old fishing village from c.1840 onwards, and its physical growth and commercial development have been more restrained than those of Bridlington. Fishing also forms part of the story of Flamborough. The wapentake contains a wide variety of ecclesiastical and domestic architecture, but there are two outstanding buildings: the great priory church at Bridlington, which survived the Dissolution with the loss of its chancel and tower, and the early-17th-century red-brick mansion of Burton Agnes Hall, replacing an old manor-house but retaining its 12th-century undercroft.

Hull was first built as a port by the Cistercian monks of Meaux Abbey, to export wool from their rapidly expanding sheep flocks. Before the end of the 13th century Hull had been acquired by Edward I, who developed it as a royal port, and from then on Hull has been one of the country's most important ports. The port makes Hull a highly defensible strategic position. In the 16th century Hull's defiance of King Charles I helped drag the country into civil war, while on Town Taking Day, celebrated in Hull for more than a century after the event, Hull's foiling of a Catholic plot lost James the whole of north England. Hull established a reputation as a centre of Puritanism, condemning theatre-going, gambling, drinking and idleness. The saying 'From Hull, Hell, and Halifax, Good Lord deliver us', indicated the ferocious treatment vagrants could expect in the town. For Hull's puritans, poverty and sin were very closely related and often required similar treatment.By the time of Queen Victoria's accession Hull was six times as large as it had been in 1700, but after the First World War Hull lost its place as the third largest port in the country, and since the Second World War, in which more than 90 per cent of all Hull's houses were either damaged or destroyed, Hull could recover only slowly. More recently, unemployment is still about twice the national average, and terrible flooding in 2010 left parts of the city uninhabitable.Nevertheless, Hull remains one of the country's largest and most important ports and this history of its trade, religious and political controversy, architecture, pirates and de la Poles is well researched, beautifully illustrated, and sure to please both Hull's inhabitants and visitors alike.

A fascinating tour of Hull's pub scene, charting the city's taverns, alehouses and watering holes, from past centuries to more recent times.