Spurn Head

Someone yesterday said it's now an island, due to the flooding in the last few years. I've looked around the internet and nothing says it is an island. Unless i've missed something?

Used to go to Cleethorpes a lot as a nipper. Spurn Head, the lighthouse and the Humber forts were those mysterious places that captures a young lad's imagination.

Eventually ventured to the other side of the estuary for the first time with my dad in 07.

I would appreciate any info you've got about the place. Is it still reachable by car?

 

Its still an island, road as gone although it was only a large block paved one through the narrowest section. They are going to look at the road situation in March.

It will reform naturally in time.

 

We had a caravan in Cleethorpes where Thorpe Park is now - those forts used to fascinate me. Could imagine them in use during the war - was an important shipping lane - always an interesting collection of German milk cartons on the beach

 

was on countryfile on sunday night

 

Used to have a caravan in Skipsea when I was quite young. Remember walking it a few times.
3 miles or so isn't really very far at all, but it always felt like it went on forever.

 

Article about it here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-25643547

 

It's because it's oop north. If Spurn was in the Thames estuary instead of the Humber, The Daily Mail would be demanding we stop all foreign aid until it's fixed.

<img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72891000/jpg/_72891921_mail_tues.jpg">

 

Used to go fishing a lot on end in the winter months we used to get decent Cod and Whiting. When the tide runs off it empties the river and has strong tide going out. When the tide turns, the sea pushes water right back up the river to the Humber Bridge. For two hours the tide slows down then reverses, and you are able to hold the bottom and fish. You dig your bait on the mud flats which is lugworm. Hard graft an backbreaking. There is a fantastic array of bird life on these flats.
Spurn Head is a hook of sand dunes formed by the sea running down the beach and depositing sand on the hook and at the end.
It has a narrow concrete road that runs down it and at one time had a rail track . The latter has now gone.
Right at the end is a River Pilot boat station. These guys are took out with powerful boats and drop a pilot on the incoming Merchant ships. They then guide the captains up the treacherous River Humber up to Hull Docks. It used to have a small community but most have left.
On the one side is the sea and long beach, and on the other side is the mud flats.
Periodically over many years the road is breached now and again. It is when strong North winds whip up the sea and at certain places it nearly breaches the road. The Authorities soon take lorry loads of rocks and aggregate and fill the breach up.
This is vital as if the sea ever broke through it would wash the mud flats into the deep channels of the river and have a massive effect on shipping.
This would then be constant dredging costing millions and might stop shipping full stop. The effect on the wild life would be colossal.
If you fancy visiting, drive through Hull down M62 and make for Withernsea. Then take the Easington turn off. There is a pub just before you get on that does Sunday Roasts
On a good summer day you would enjoy it. Stop near the end and walk to the old light house. Then when at road end walk on to the very end
Believe me when I say that when you get down there you will think civilisation has ended, it is wild rugged and absolutely out of this world

 

Usually go one or twice a year good day out for walking and wildlife.

 

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The road will never reform if it is permanently breached. It is not an island it is an hook of land formed by the sea depositing sand at the end
The road will have been temporary repaired to stop the breach, then a full repair done as soon as possible

 

The life boat station has been closed some time. So has the coast guard on the light house.
Still see the pilot boats anchored on end and their Social club on the end pulls a good pint.

 

Been going there since a was a kid cos its probably the best mainland site in Britain for migrant birds.
I went more than usual last year because I was doing a bit of work on the Humber at Salt End in Hull.
The sea has washed over the Narrow Neck (actual name) so the road has gone.
Its not so much an island but you cant drive to the Point now - its a walk from the Warren (actual name)

Strange place to drive when you could still drive down to the Point, especially at high tide - very narrow road with the North Sea at one side of the road and the 7 mile wide river Humber at the other side of the road - it was like driving on the sea

Although its good for birds I've always thought Spurn was a melancholy type of place.
Its got quite a bit of history surrounding it - in the second world war there was a tram system that had trams with sails to take materials and men down to the point.
Big army bunkers at the Point because the Humber was an area where they thought the Germans would invade
There's a man made island fort in the middle of the Humber that I think was built in the 1st World War

Long swirly roads from Hull to get to it..............its worth a visit but its an odd place..........it definitely int pretty........lots of debris washed ashore from the North Sea and Humber plus the sea has broken up much of the old army defences so there's huge chunks of concrete laid about
Lots of Barnsley Birders have got houses in the Spurn / Kilnsea / Patrington area............so expect to hear the Barnsley accent there
Nice pint of Landlord in the Crown and Anchor at Kilnsea

 

Didn't think we frequented same places. Just shows. One thing for certain Nudger is that it is not a place to visit in north winter winds

 

this place is spooky , bit like Spurn head

http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/dont_miss/codename/orford.shtml

 

EVEN SPOOKIER
http://www.shford.fslife.co.uk/ShingleSt/index.html?detail=overview

 

Another birding site that I found to be very spooky is when I was doing a job for Natural England on Hatfield Moor in Doncaster.
The warden at that time said he would show me around.
We came to a place that looked like a landscape that resembled a giant blackboard laid on the ground - the effect of peat cutting by fissons on a huge scale.
There were mounds as big as an house stuck up here and there within this flat black landscape.
I asked the warden what they were.
He said..........they are war graves..........each mound is where a plane during the Second World War has tried to land back at Lindholme Airfield but has miscalculated and gone straight into the deep peat bog.............. the peat cutters have excavated around each grave...........the mound nearest to us is a Polish aeroplane with Polish pilots still in there...........
Then he said.............I'll tell thi this, I don't come out here at night

 

Well i was enjoying myself up until the spooky places!

 

I went about a month ago. Although the access road is closed and there's no road to the end, it is just passable by Land Rover. It's like one big beach at the narrow bit.
I wasn't there at high tide though so don't know whether the sea crosses to the Humber. Well worth a visit.

 

Was there a school at Spurn Point at one time - seem to think I've a book about it somewhere in the attic?