Migrants Way. Stage 5. Withernsea to Tunstall

I drove though the windy roads of the heart of Holderness this morning, gentle hills and lush countryside. It was bright, warm and I enjoyed some long sunny spells. After parking at Pier Road and before starting the walk, I went for a stroll around Withernsea town centre by Station Road and the Lighthouse, then returning to the Pier Towers. Swifts, Swallows and House Martins over town. The tide was quite high, so I walked on the promenade and the clifftop path. The cliffs rise after Withernsea, and then gradually become lower until ‘Sand-le-Mere’, where the cliffs are very low and there is a boat compound on the slope to the beach. The clifftop public access to Tunstall is unclear, as the stretch of Seaside Road parallel to the coast has fallen onto the sea due to erosion and there is no clear path. On the way back I took a detour inland to the caravan park and walk on the beach from Sand-le-Mere until reaching Withernsea north promenade.

Flocks of Sand Martins by Redhouse farm.

On the clifftop, Skylarks and Meadow Pipits sing and display, and the Sand Martins are constantly present flying around their colonies scattered all along the cliff face. Some of them are obviously digging their nests.

Meadow Pipit calling.

Mating Craneflies. Many on the cliff top path.

Meadow Pipit.

There must have been some fish school offshore, as hundreds of Herring Gulls were feeding.

The largest Sand martin colony I saw today.

Sand Martins.

Sand Martins.

The boat compound at Sand-le-Mere.

We are now on the West!

Just at the beach by Tunstall drain at Sand-le-Mere the Greenwich Meridian touches land (TA3183831180). A Greenwich Meridian marker was erected in 1999, unfortunately just 3 m from the cliff edge. It only took four years to fall onto the beach. It might not be easy to find now.

Tunstall Drain from the embankment.

There is an earth embankment protecting the low lying land and remains of sea defences at the end of Tunstall Drain, but these are no longer maintained. There is a proposal to create a large area of lagoons and grazing marshes as far as Withernsea Rd. as a managed realignment project but I’m not sure if it is going ahead. The area is low-lying and a breach of the embankment could result in large swathes of Holderness being flooded.

 A freshwater mere once stood at Sand-le-Mere. Today, only some late glacial to early-Holocene deposits survive on the low-lying land by the drain. The mere is shown in maps of the 17th century, south of Tunstall, and the easternmost side of it survived until the XIX century, when it was completely washed away.

Submarine Forests

In this section of the coast, just off sea, intertidal peat deposits often include preserved ghostly stumps and roots of ancient trees which are sometimes revealed at spring tides. On OS maps these are marked labelled ‘submarine forests’ at Withernsea (‘Noah’s wood’), Redhouse Farm, Sand-le-Mere and off Tunstall caravan park. The wooded remains are revealed by the movement of sands over the clay. Today, I couldn't believe my luck when I got to Sand-le-Mere, as the receding tide had exposed some tree stumps. On the way back, at low tide, large areas of clay and silty soil were exposed and I was thrilled to explore the submarine forest and have my lunch sitting by a large fallen trunk. Some of the large tree trunks in the clay still have bark on them.

This trunk still had bark on the side.

The largest of the tree trunks, where I had my lunch.

A tree stump with exposed roots.

A section of peat by the beach.

In his 1841 book “The History and Antiquities of the Seigniory of Holderness” George Poulson described such an exposure of the submarine forest in the north beach of Withernsea, by Owthorne, which I quote entirely here:

“The spring tides of about the 26th December 1839 having laid bare to a great extent the bed of a morass or submerged forest which lies at about three quarters ebb on the seashore off Owthorne in Holderness have thereby exposed to view the organic remains of a distant and unknown era consisting of trees of various kinds with their branches bark and more or less flattened by the weight of the superincumbent earth by which they have been covered acorns hazel nuts leaves and roots of reeds etc all embedded amongst decomposed vegetable matter. Adjoining these are beds of the shells of the river or fresh water mussel but they are in such a state of decomposition that they will not bear removing they lay embedded on clay which appears to have been the bottom of a fresh water lake The morass likewise contains bones of various animals and on the 28th December a boy of the name of Robinson dug up a stag's horn supposed of the elephus or red deer which is in a most wonderful state of preservation it is 10 inches in circumference at the root the length to the top branches is 2 feet 2 inches the top or leading branch was broken off in getting it out of the earth and the brow antler was unfortunately cut off by the spade the two lower inward branches are one 12 the other 14 inches long from the root to the top of the outward branch it measures 2 feet 9 inches There was lately found also by the Rev Thomas Mounsey at Owthorne upon the sands near the foot of the cliff from whence it had probably not been long dislodged as it is in a most perfect state an elephant's tooth not having suffered in the least degree any abration which would have been the consequence of long agitation by the waves It weighed nearly 71bs It is a most beautiful specimen and is in the possession of Mr William Little of Pattrington"

Featured bird: Skylark

All through this walk, the Skylark song has been a constant companion. Skylark are birds of open grassy spaces and they thrive in traditional farmland. The sharp declines in Skylark population numbers in the mid 70s mirrors what has happened to most farmland birds with the intensification of agriculture and declines of plants seeds during winter due to efficient harvesting, herbicide use and the change from spring sown to autumn sown crops, meaning reductions in winter stubble fields. More research is ongoing, to understand the changes in this Red listed species. Skylarks are resident in the area, but migration from the continent produces a clear peak of birds in the autumn, when small loose flocks pass over giving their chirruping call.

Walk information

May. 11 km circular. Start: Withernsea Pier entrance gate TA343279. End at Tunstall Seaside Lane. The beach is accessible through the north promenade (steps, and one ramp) and at Sand-le-Mere. Public toilets by Withernsea Valley Gardens, near Pier Towers.q

More information

Sheppard, J. A. 1957. The Medieval Meres of Holderness. Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers) 75–86.

Poulson, G. 1841 “The History and Antiquities of the Seigniory of Holderness”

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/environment/coastal-erosion-exposes-ancient-trees-yorkshire-beach-1746936