SKEALS
Spurn Kilnsea and Easington Area Local Studies
The Changing Face of Easington
The Changing Face of Easington - High StreetEvery town has a High Street, so do a lot of villages, Easington is one of them.
The first map from 1771 gives the overall view and location of High Street; just south of the church in the centre of the map, this map appears to have been drawn by Iverson the solicitor (the ivy leaf in the bottom right hand corner, was his trade mark) the second one is a close up view of the same area. It is strange that the road adjacent to High Street on the right seems to be much wider.
On turning down High Street from South Church Side, on the left there are two houses on the corner owned by Fenwick and Charlton, the land owners down the street are Thomas Almand, Bernard Sawyer, Mary Dunn and John Porter. On the right hand side going down, the land owners are Glebe Land, John Smith, Robt. Hanson and Thomas Carrick. The first notable observation is; there is no Thatched/Tithe barn present (this is another story?).
There is a row of six cottages which were occupied by Ruth Buck, Ann Cooper, Henry Bride, John Smith, Wm. Green and JN Smith. These cottages we must assume are the thatched ones that appear in later photos.
The picture above is taken from the church tower looking south, shows the first five cottages on the left, these were up for sale around 1918/20 at the price of, the whole block £100.00 (My grandfather didn’t bother because they had been condemned!) One famous resident who lived at number 4 High Street, was the quite remarkable 'Rural Messenger',(as described in the 1881 Census), Mr Barney Coy. Barney was the local postman for the area. He walked to Spurn Point six days a week delivering mail along the way, a distance of 15 miles, 90 miles a week, 4,590 miles a year for a period of 35 years, clocking up an amazing estimated distance of 161,000 miles. He received 6 commendatory long service stripes, he should have had 7, one for each 5 years of service, but the Royal Mail did not expect anyone to achieve more than 30 years service. He also received the British Empire Medal.
Barney Coy, postman, outside his house no.4 High Street.
A water colour painting of the back of the cottages.
A view looking south down High Street.
Continuing south, Back Street is on the left, then a further block of four cottages; these were mostly occupied by fishermen. The white house facing north further back is ‘Gable Ends’ formerly called ‘Ivy House’ and used to be the home of the local clergy, until a new vicarage was built up Hull Road in 1922. On the lower right of the photo are some hay stacks within the paddock surrounding the Tithe Barn, then there appears to be a thatched single storey dwelling (now long gone), the next building along is ‘Ravenser’, a house built for Robert Alan Park as a holiday residence. Robert was later Mayor of Hedon. Within the construction of the building there can be seen a number of blue bricks acting as a damp course and for decoration. These were left over bricks from the construction of the new Thomas Matthews light house at Spurn which was completed in 1895, involving the use of 300, 000 Staffordshire blue vitrified engineering bricks, after faults were found in the old lighthouse. So this definitely dates the ‘Ravenser’ being built after 1895. The house was later used as a private girls school run by Miss Olivia Maister, daughter of the Rev. Henry Maister M. A. who was the Vicar of Easington.
Ravenser.
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The house was purchased later by Mr and Mrs Tommy Duck. They ran a fish and chip shop alongside the house, the outline of the roof and chimney stack can be seen above.
The next house along is ‘Ryton’ once owned by Mr Reginald Cussons a farmer. It was extended to twice its size sometime later. The two other dwellings in the photo were built much later and named Maister Cottages after the school mistress.
Mr. Reg Cussons believed greatly in only drinking water that was from a hand pumped well, and his basic diet was mostly porridge. He was the only person that I have ever seen ride a bike so slowly, he would pedal the bike with the absolute minimum of energy, just barely keeping the bike upright!
The next house along is called Newholme, this originally was a single dwelling owned by Mr and Mrs Pinder (it is now two dwellings) Mrs Pinder was part of the War effort, in as much as during the W.W.l., to help safeguard food and crops the Government paid one penny (1d) for a rat tail and a halfpenny (1/2d) for a sparrow. You took the items to Mrs Pinder who would pay you; with the sparrows she would pull off their heads and throw them onto an ash pile. Some of the youths of the village would sneak back at night and retrieve the decapitated sparrows and due to the lady’s poor eyesight, you could get away with sewing the heads back on again, then taking them back to her. If you were really skilful with a needle and thread, you could make three halfpence (1 1/2d) out of one sparrow; she would never know the difference!
Next to Newholme there used to be a holiday home in the form of an aircraft fuselage with a Perspex domed front, this was removed and a bungalow built there, belonging to the late Mr. Peter Webster former shop keeper, Postmaster and J.P.
An early sketch of High Street by the well know Hull artist F. S. Smith (about 1898).
A post card with a similar view around 1905
Following on are two new build houses then Pax Cottage and Southfields. This was formerly a farm and extended around the corner with various outbuildings. It was owned and run by Mr Reginald Clubley.
Southfields Farm.
The out buildings have since been demolished and further housing has been built in its place, also there are two dwellings, Sunthorpe set back from the road and a converted barn named Miller’s Barn.
On the opposite side of the road is Low Farm, owned for a number of years by the Biglin family.
Low Farm.
Low Farm can be seen in the centre of this photograph taken in about 1960. Showing the outbuildings surrounding the farm, the main barn has now been changed in to a dwelling.
Returning back down High Street past the cottages, there is a newly laid garden encompassed by a cobble stone wall. This was the site of the Connor & Graham bus garage, a business that was started in 1921 by Mr. Cam Connor and Mr. Jim Graham the garage was situated here until 1986 until it moved to new premises behind the back of the White Horse pub. The business finally closed in 1994 after being bought out by East Yorkshire Motor Services, from 1928.
Photo showing the bus garage in the centre.
Same view after the removal of the garage.