40 Fun Facts About East Riding of Yorkshire

Which 1851 novel describes a skeleton Sir Clifford Constable kept at Burton Constable Hall near Sproatley?

Moby-Dick devotes a passage to Sir Clifford Constable's sperm whale, which stranded at nearby Tunstall in 1825. As lord of the Holderness foreshore, he could claim whatever washed up.

The 'Riding' in East Riding of Yorkshire comes from an Old Norse word with which meaning?

A third part is what the Old Norse word meant, because Viking-age Yorkshire was divided into East, North and West. That is why Yorkshire never had a South Riding outside fiction.

Which Hull-born aviator came home to Hedon aerodrome in 1930 after flying solo to Australia?

Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia, and her triumphant homecoming began on Hedon's airfield, which had been a racecourse until 1909.

Hull is known for telephone boxes painted which colour instead of the usual British red?

Cream kiosks mark Hull as the only place in the UK not served by BT. The city's council-founded phone company was never absorbed into the Post Office network.

Which East Riding resort on the Hull to Scarborough line is nicknamed the 'Lobster Capital of Europe'?

Bridlington lands more than 300 tonnes of lobster a year, which makes its harbour the largest lobster port in Europe. Much of the catch is exported to France, Spain and Italy.

The clay cliffs of the Holderness coast in the East Riding suffer Europe's highest rate of what?

Coastal erosion is so rapid here because the cliffs are soft glacial boulder clay facing long North Sea waves. Dozens of Holderness towns and villages have vanished into the sea.

The Humber Bridge, opened in 1981, held which world record for its first 17 years?

The longest single suspension span in the world belonged to the Humber Bridge until Japan's Akashi Kaikyo Bridge opened in 1998. Its 1,410-metre centre span is still the longest in Britain.

What kind of building stands inland in the middle of Withernsea and now houses a Kay Kendall museum?

A lighthouse 127 feet tall rises among Withernsea's houses; when it was built in the 1890s only sand dunes lay between it and the sea. Its light went out in 1976.

Which Norwegian king was killed fighting Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge in the East Riding in 1066?

Harald Hardrada fell at Stamford Bridge after the English army marched from London in four days and caught him by surprise. Within weeks the victor himself lay dead at Hastings.

Which county town of the East Riding of Yorkshire is known for its Gothic minster and its racecourse?

Beverley grew around a monastery founded about 700 by John of Beverley, whose remains still lie in a vault beneath the minster's nave.

Which Hull-born MP, a pupil at Pocklington School, led Parliament's campaign against the slave trade?

William Wilberforce headed the campaign for 20 years until the Slave Trade Act of 1807. His birthplace in Hull has been a museum in his memory since 1906.

Which East Riding town on the River Ouse has the United Kingdom's furthest inland port?

Goole lies about 50 miles from the North Sea and was a brand-new canal company town of some 450 people when its docks opened in 1826. Its Tom Pudding tub boats each carried about 40 tons of coal.

Bempton Cliffs in the East Riding hold England's only mainland breeding colony of which seabird?

Gannet crowds are the headline act at the RSPB reserve, but its puffins are the oddity: they nest in rock crevices there, while those at most British sites dig burrows.

Which Bradford-born artist painted 'Bigger Trees Near Warter', a vast East Riding landscape?

David Hockney built the picture from 50 canvases painted outdoors, and at about 12 metres wide it is the largest painting he ever completed. He gave it to the Tate in 2008.

Hull City's black and amber striped shirts gave the football club which nickname?

The Tigers reached the Premier League for the first time in 2008 by beating Bristol City in the play-off final.

Hull held which title in 2017, when the Turner Prize came to its Ferens Art Gallery?

UK City of Culture went to Hull after it beat Dundee, Leicester and Swansea Bay on the final shortlist of four.

Which Hull aquarium, designed by Terry Farrell, stands where the River Hull meets the Humber estuary?

The Deep holds 2.5 million litres of water and 87 tonnes of salt at Sammy's Point. About half the money to build it came from the Millennium Commission.

Which landscape designer laid out the lakes and park of Burton Constable Hall, next to Sproatley?

Capability Brown joined the ponds into two lakes and added a ha-ha, and the estate steward wrote down his directions visit by visit, a record that still survives.

Passenger trains on the Hull to Withernsea line through Hedon ended in 1964 under which closure programme?

The Beeching cuts closed a line that had created its own destination: three years before the railway opened in 1854, Withernsea was a village of just 109 people.

The Yorkshire Wolds are the northernmost hills in Great Britain formed of which rock?

Chalk gives the Wolds their white sea cliffs and feeds the Gypsey Race, the northernmost stream of its kind in Europe.

Which town stands at the northern end of the Humber Bridge and starts the Yorkshire Wolds Way?

Hessle faces Barton-upon-Humber across the estuary, and the old quarries beside its bridge tower were turned into a country park once the crossing was built.

Which sand spit at the mouth of the Humber became a tidal island after a 2013 storm surge?

Spurn Head has been reachable only on foot since the December 2013 surge wrecked its road, and the narrowest stretch of sand now floods at each high tide.

Off which Yorkshire headland did American captain John Paul Jones win a famous sea battle in 1779?

Flamborough Head watched Jones capture the frigate HMS Serapis, then lose his own battered flagship, Bonhomme Richard, which sank soon afterwards.

Which market town on the Hull to Scarborough line is known as the 'Capital of the Wolds'?

Driffield earned the title by sitting near the centre of the Wolds, and the River Hull begins as springs just outside the town.

Which seaside town beside Yorkshire's largest freshwater lake ends the Trans Pennine Trail?

Hornsea is reached along the bed of its closed branch railway from Hull, the last leg of the coast-to-coast path from Southport. The town also gave its name to a well-known pottery.

Burnby Hall Gardens in Pocklington hold the United Kingdom's national collection of which plants?

Water lilies cover the two lakes that Major Stewart left to the town, forming the largest such collection in a natural setting in Europe.

Hull to Scarborough line trains start from which Hull station, now joined to the city's bus station?

Paragon opened in 1848 as Hull Paragon Street, and from the 1860s the Holderness branch trains through Hedon ended their journeys there as well.

Which first stop north of Hull on the Hull to Scarborough line claims to be England's largest village?

Cottingham is one of several places that claim the title, and its station, opened in 1846, now mostly carries commuters from Hull's northern suburbs.

Which poet, a University of Hull librarian for 30 years, has a statue at Hull's main railway station?

Philip Larkin's statue was unveiled in 2010, on the 25th anniversary of his death, in a year when Hull also scattered 40 giant decorated toads around its streets in his honour.

Which future king landed at the lost port of Ravenspurn in 1399 to take the throne from Richard II?

Henry IV came ashore as the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, a landing Shakespeare worked into Richard II. Edward IV used the same harbour in 1471, and the town now lies beneath the North Sea.

Which Yorkshire horse race, said to date from 1519, is widely accepted as England's oldest annual race?

Kiplingcotes Derby has a quirk in its ancient rules: the rider who finishes second often takes home more prize money than the winner.

Britain's tallest standing stone, over 25 feet high, is in the churchyard of which East Riding village?

Rudston is thought to take its name from the prehistoric stone, which towers beside All Saints Church and was capped in lead in 1773.

Which East Riding-born novelist wrote 'South Riding', published in 1936 just after her death?

Winifred Holtby knew she was dying and put her remaining energy into the book, which her lifelong friend Vera Brittain then edited for publication.

Which poet, author of 'To His Coy Mistress' and later MP for Hull, was born at Winestead in Holderness?

Andrew Marvell grew up in Hull after his father took a post at Holy Trinity Church, attended Hull Grammar School, and was first elected the town's MP in 1659.

Which East Riding town, with a station on the Hull to York line, built the R100 airship in the 1920s?

Howden's wartime airship station was bought by Vickers to build the R100, and the design team under Barnes Wallis included the future novelist Nevil Shute.

William Bradley, the 'Yorkshire Giant' who stood 7 feet 9 inches tall, was born in which East Riding town?

Market Weighton unveiled a life-sized wooden statue of Bradley in 2008, and a well-known local story has him carrying a massive boulder there from Goodmanham on a challenge.

Which village on the old Hull to Withernsea line has a church called the 'Queen of Holderness'?

Patrington has the 'Queen' in St Patrick's Church, while St Augustine's in Hedon, a few stops back along the same branch, is known as the 'King'.

At which North Yorkshire junction station does the Hull to Scarborough line meet the line from York?

Seamer opened in 1845 on the York route and became a junction a year later when the coast branch arrived. It is the last stop before the line's northern terminus.

The Yorkshire Wolds Way National Trail runs 79 miles from the Humber estuary to which seaside town?

Filey is where the path finishes, on the rocky point of Filey Brigg, and hands walkers straight on to the Cleveland Way, another National Trail.

Hedon Town Hall holds which ceremonial object, the oldest surviving example in England?

Hedon's civic mace is plainly a weapon of war, and it came with a 1415 charter to a town that had once been the 11th largest port in England.