That such a narrow spit of shifting sand should exist so tenaciously on a part of the coast suffering so much from the inroads of the sea appears most remarkable until we realize that its existence is probably the result of the erosion of the shore to the north, combined with the opposed action of river and ocean. There seems little doubt that the material composing the spit of land is the waste of the Holderness shore, and possibly contains some of the material of the land on which the romantic town of Ravenserodd stood. Although we must regret the loss of this historic town, all its attractiveness might have been dissipated by this time, even if it had survived, by the processes that turned the picturesque town of Hull into an ugly, if exceedingly prosperous, seaport. In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the Humber without the accompaniment of dirt and unsightly surroundings. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise, and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward III., and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and also presented with the Lordship of Holderness. The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which have been discovered. There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and _eyr_ or _ore_, meaning a narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada’s army from Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is mentioned in the lines: ‘The King the swift ships with the flood Set out, with the autumn approaching, And sailed from the port, called Hrafnseyrr (the raven tongue of land).’