Humber Waters Past and Present - Riverside Walkway - North Ferriby, East Riding of Yorkshire - UK Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

An information board on the Riverside Walkway, North Ferriby, on the shore of the River Humber, outlining the history of the area since the Ice Age to present day.

"The Humber suffered the most recent of what has been a whole series of global ice ages between about 20,000 and 10,000BC. lce advanced down the North Sea and reached Hessle from the East, whilst other ice from the Pennines advanced from the West reaching Brough and Welton. The high land on which Ferriby is built probably marks the only ice-free banks of the estuary, squeezed between the glaciers. The retreating tce laid down what we now call Holderness and North Lincolnshire.

Global sea levels, which during the Ice Age were perhaps some 100 — 150m below present day, began to recover steadily. [Eventually] the sea had re-advanced to about Dogger Bank but still left the Southern North Sea as a land bridge for the European tribes which moved into our area.

The sea finally returned to flood the Humber Estuary ..... since that date the daily flooding and ebbing of the tide has continued almost unchanged to the present day.

Sediments from the Ouse and Trent -

The mighty Humber drains some 25,000 km of central and eastern England and carries millions of tonnes of sediment from the catchment into the North Sea system. Much of this settles on the banks, indeed the Bronze Age Boats lay undisturbed at North Ferriby for 4,000 years until the sediment was eroded. More material settles in the North Sea and sometimes it is carried from the Pennines to the salt marshes of Holland and Germany.

Tides -

The tide at the mouth of the Humber rises steadily for six hours before falling to low tide through the next six hours (giving a symmetrical sinusoid). Further iniand at Goole a short and sharp rise and fall from high water is followed by a long drawn out low water (asymmetric). The tide also climbs uphill so that low water at Goole is some 2.5m higher than at Spurn Head.

Ships and Navigation -

Much of the life and economic prosperity of our region depends upon the Humber as a trade and transport route. The Ferriby Boats themselves, which were far too big for simple private use, attest to commercial navigation going back for thousands of years. To the Romans the Humber formed a natural Northern border to their empire for many years, whilst the Vikings used the estuary to penetrate far inland.

The Humber’s strong currents and shifting mud banks mean the ships must take great care in navigating the treacherous waters.

Nowadays, of course, large ships pass to the ports and wharfs from all over the world. To this day shipping travels upstream on the flood and downstream on the ebb, just as the late Bronze Age Boatmen would have done thousands of years ago."

SOURCE - info board

Type of Historic Marker: Information board Give your Rating: Historical Marker Issuing Authority: Not listed Age/Event Date: Not listed Related Website: Not listed

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Date Logged Log   07/12/2021 dtrebilc visited it