A cloudy and windy morning, but I feel like I need to make a start on the trail. This is the first stage of a new trail I've planned for this year, which I called the Last Interglacial Coast Trail. For more info and background on the trail go to the linked page. I had planned to get the train to Hessle, as its station is linked to the topic of the trail, but there is strike action today, so I opt for the bus and walk to Hull Royal Infirmary to take bus 350 to the Humber Bridge. I get there just after 9 am. I'm keen to visit the visible cliff at Humber Bridge Country Park (top shot). This is the result of quarrying, but it gives an idea of the height of the cliff as it must have looked during the Last Interglacial.
It has just been low tide and the wind is ruffling the Humber. As I walk under the Humber Bridge, a group of Wigeon on the shoreline are finding it hard to avoid the waves of pink-brown water. During the last interglacial, the Humber mouth was here. It was a clear estuary as there was no Holderness clay constantly feeding onto it as a result of erosion. It is likely that saltmarsh would have formed here, sheltering the cliff to some extent, although the cliffs would have been exposed to erosion at high tide and during storms. The cliffs are not as high as those in Flamborough, maybe just 20 m high, the low Lincolnshire coast visible across, and the open North Sea, the then Bay of Holderness looking east. I'm not going to see much of the sea until I get to Bridlington later in the trail, so I linger, despite the stiff wind.
One of the two exposures of the buried interglacial cliff is the Hessle exposure. This is located by Woodfield Lane, just by the bridge over the railway line near the station. I make a stop to look from the bridge (above). The exposure was first noted in 1825. Excavations took place when the railway line and bridge were constructed and during further roadworks that exposed the cliff, the last in 1983, where the site was visited by members of the Hull Geological Society. Most of the mammal fossils collected at the buried cliff ended up at Hull Museums, but were sadly lost during the war. Horse was one of the most abundant fossils, which suggested that the fauna belonged to the end of the interglacial, when conditions had started to become cold again. The location of the Hessle buried cliff is shown in a diagram by Walton, limited by the chalk pits in the town, where the chalk is close to the surface at the top of the cliff, and the sands and gravels, that are present beyond the cliff, laid during the glacial and subsequent postglacial period. I have myself plotted the location of chalk pits to help place the western limit of the buried cliff to map the walk.
I carry on due north by Woodfield Lane, Hessle, slowly climbing in height. It is an affluent area, with large houses with long drives and mature trees. Much more wooded than the wider area. From the college there is an expansive view towards the East. It would have been all the blue open sea to the horizon, the smell of the seaweed on the strandline brought in by the breeze.
I cross Boothferry Road and then walk north along Jenny Brough Lane. The line of houses end at a farm, and the highest point in the stage, 40 m. A few horses are grazing on the paddocks, with Blackbirds and Redwings. The path turns east, following a boundary between the paddocks and some ploughed and fallow fields, with hedgerows protecting me from the wind. Two Skylarks sing and chase. A Buzzard flies up the hill, against the wind, mobbed by Crows. A man scans a field with a metal detector.
I'm getting now to Tranby Croft, which used to be a large country house and state. The tower building is most impressive. I walk along Tranby Ride and make my way to Kirk Ella by Woodland Drive, Mill Lane and School Lane. Soon, I am at St Andrews church, Kirkella. The area has many historic buildings.
I make a quick stop for a hot drink at Willerby. Jackdaws call from chimney pots. After a little while I read Willerby Low Road, a quiet rural road.
My first Fieldfare of the year, one of a dozen or so feeding with Starlings by Willerby Low Road near Cottingham.
The exact position of the coastline is known where borehole data has been obtained. One of these locations is at Harland Way, Cottingham. The steep incline of Harland Way, which is familiar to anyone who has cycled to Skidby Mill, is also a cue to the location of the cliff. Given the uncertainty, this is not strictly a 'coast' or a 'cliff-top' walk, given the location of the cliff line is imprecise. The low cliffs would have been 5 to 30 m high, but in some areas the bedrock would have been low-lying and covered by sediments or dunes or protected by saltmarshes, so a strict cliff may not have existed all the way. Ravines and rivers would have flowed to the bay and mudflats would have been exposed at low tide.
After crossing Eppleworth road and Cottingham Cemetery, I reach Harland Way, I walk to the bus stop to get bus 104 back home in time for lunch.
Humber Hippos
It might be surprising, but the past existence of Hippopotamus in Britain is well documented, with fossils found in Wales and across southern England as north as Newcastle in several interglacial periods for the last million years. Eltringham put it quite graphically: ‘most of the rivers in southern Britain were swarming with hippos, much as the African rivers are today’. The hippos from the last interglacial belonged to the same species as today’s African river Hippo, Hippopotamus amphibious. They would likely have shared similar behaviour and habitat: they’d wallow in slow flowing water during the day in noisy herds, and emerge to feed on nearby grasslands at night, following well-trodden trails. Although hippo fossils from Trafalgar square are the most famous, Yorkshire fossils are surprisingly plentiful. They have been found in Kirkdale Cave, Sewerby Cliff, near Pickering, Leeds, and Victoria Cave, confirming that they did roam on all the major river basins in the region, including all the tributaries of the Humber. Both Kirkdale Cave and Victoria Cave were hyena dens, and the hippo fossils there, mostly teeth, belonged to young hippos, indicating that even this very large animal fell prey to hyenas (and likely cave lions too). The presence of hippo fossils in a site is a good indication of mild winters and warmer climate than we have today. The Humber with its main tributaries the Ouse and the Trent, would have been a hippo hotspot. The Driffield area with its braided delta, and the lower reaches of the Gypsey Race by Bridlington would also likely have held some hippo schools.
The Armley hippo.
Where can I see them?
If you don’t want to travel far, how about a walk to Albany Street of Spring Bank, where you can pay your respects to a sculpture in honour of Bucheet? Bucheet was the first hippo that made it to Hull in modern times, and was one of the last exhibits as the zoo closed shortly after. London Zoo acquired a hippo in 1860 named "Bucheet" Bucheet was exhibited around the UK and spent a few weeks in Hull before being shipped via Liverpool across the Atlantic. It is regarded as the first hippo in North America. Bucheet had a short life, a young hippo when captured, he died in a Canadian circus in 1867. In the wild, hippos can live into the early 40s.
Walk details. Distance: 12.5 km. Terrain: light inclines, some steps at the country park, much of it flat, on tarmac. Maximum height 40 m, minimum sea level at Hessle Foreshore. Start by the Humber Bridge, Hessle, end at Harland Way, Cottingham. A mix of urban and rural landscapes, with arable and hedgerows and small wooded pockets.
More information
Fenton, K. The Hessle and Sewerby Buried Cliffs
Catt, J.A. and Penny, L.F. 1966 The Pleistocene Deposits of Holderness Proc.Yorks. Geol.Soc. 35: 375-420.
Walton, F. F. Some Sections in the Hessle Gravels. Proc. Yorks. Geol. Soc. 12, 396–407 (1894)
