What’s on : Activities

A Day of Geology and Archaeology at Skipsea

Activities
Date
25 Nov 2021
Start time
10:30 AM
Venue
Speaker
N/A
A Day of Geology and Archaeology at Skipsea

Event Information

The YPS Geology Group is running a day trip to Skipsea on the Holderness Coast, led by Paul Hildreth and Paul Thornley.  We will visit two sites, each having glacial landforms. There is archaeological interest from the Mesolithic to late medieval.

Transport by private car. YPS admin fee of £2 payable on the day.

We will use Mr Moo’s Ice Cream Parlour as car park, toilets, coffee stop and optional lunch spot.

Skipsea Withow mere shows evidence of the oscillations and retreat of the North Sea Ice Lobe of the Late Devensian Ice Sheet from 30 ka to 16 ka. The Holderness Coast is predominantly comprised of Late Quaternary-aged glaciofluvial sediments. Low lying ground then was infilled by organic rich meres from 15 ka to 10 ka (as Hornsea Mere today!), showing a fluctuating but generally warming climate.

There are currently Bronze Age arboreal/faunal exposures at the coast which have not been recorded in surveys of the site from only twenty years ago.

Skipsea Castle is a motte and bailey Norman Castle from about 1086, set in the middle of Skipsea Bail Mere which was not drained until the C18. The site is remote and extraordinarily extensive, with its own fortified settlement of Skipsea Brough and evidence of causeways and ramparts.

Dr Jim Leary now of University of York, undertook a programme of coring of mounds when at University of Reading and showed the central motte was unexpectedly ancient.

Timings:

10.30 am    Meet and register in the car park of Mr Moo’s. From the West,                                  drive through Skipsea, turn R. with the road, after 500 m turn                                     L. at signpost. Refreshments.

11.00 am    Walk to cliff section of Skipsea Withow to examine glacial and                                    post-glacial deposits and discoveries. Erratics and Landscape.

12.30 pm    Lunch. Mr Moo’s available for meal or ice-cream (or both!)

1.15 pm     Transfer to Skipsea Castle for a tour of the impressive site, among                             the first castles raised in Yorkshire. No formal parking at the                                      castle,  please park carefully on the roadside.

3.00 pm     Depart.

Please register by 22nd November. Information on how to register can be found in this pdf :- Registration information

Further details and background reading will be sent on registration.

Please consider offering lifts to those you know without transport who may wish to attend.