British Town Swallowed Up By The Sea Finally Found After Centuries

A town that fell into the sea centuries ago has finally been found after decades of searching.

The medieval port town of Ravenser Odd, also sometimes known as Ravensrodd, was located in East Yorkshire at the mouth of the Humber Estuary.

In its heyday it was a more important town than Hull, but that all changed when it was swept into the sea where it would spend the next few centuries underwater.

Now, however, the Daily Mirror reports that a team of dedicated scientists have finally found 'Yorkshire's Atlantis' after a new search turned up rocks and stonework beneath the sea.

Decades of searching for Ravenser Odd may have been hampered by looking in the wrong place as it was generally believed that the most likely site was about a mile off the Yorkshire coast.

The British Library via Flickr Commons

Searching closer to the shore has turned up this new discovery, which could be a significant breakthrough in fully uncovering the lost town swallowed up by the sea 660 years ago.

Professor Dan Parsons of the University of Hull told The Sun this discovery 'could be on par with Pompeii'.

He said: 'It’s fascinating, exciting, exhilarating - the exact location of this medieval town hasn’t ever been pin-pointed.

'We now have the tools and the technology to go out there and locate it once and for all'.

Founded in the mid 13th century, Ravenser Odd had become a flourishing coastal market town by 1299 with more than 100 houses and a set of wharves and warehouses along the sea shore to collect cargo from ships.

It was important enough to send two MPs to parliament and welcomed maritime merchants from more than 100 trading vessels a year.

Alamy

Sadly for the people living there, the old biblical story about the foolish man building his house upon the sand might as well have been talking about the unfortunate town of Ravenser Odd.

The shifting of the sandbanks began to sweep the the town away into the sea, and storms over the winter of 1356 to 1357 finished it off as an inhabited settlement.

When the rains came down and the floods came up the town was completely submerged, leading it to be abandoned by its inhabitants in favour of a home that was a little less underwater.

A famous flood, known as St Marcellus's Flood, hit the British Isles in 1362 and that finished off what was left of the abandoned town of Ravenser Odd, the sea completely claiming the coastal port.

Topics: UK News

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

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