Abstract

A combination of documentary sources, measured ground survey, fieldwalking and aerial survey is used to reconstruct the history and morphology of the former riverside village and township of Eske in the Hull valley of Holderness, East Yorkshire. The account describes the changing layout of the medieval village (which included a planned extension containing building platforms and crewyards), its ‘long-strip’ arable field system, carrland meadows, pastures and turbaries, drainage works and boundary features, together with details of landholding and organisation. The evidence for medieval plot layout, building construction, house types and crewyards is discussed in the context of other sites in eastern England, and changes in village morphology and agriculture are considered in the context of regional environmental and climatic change. The village was substantially depopulated during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and its later history, which featured extensive marshland reclamation, is outlined and illustrated by contemporary maps. An appendix lists central government sources commonly used to provide quantitative data for comparative wealth and population of English rural settlements. The field survey was grant-aided by the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries and publication was grant-aided by the Council for British Archaeology.