23rd June, 2019 Reed’s Island, Ravenser (Odd), Sunk Island 4.

The picture above is taken from a book about Romano-British buildings, this reconstruction compiled from evidence found in an archaeological dig in central London in the 1990s. It shows that the style of wall-building known generally as wattle-and-daub had a very long history stretching from the Romano-British era to the  18th century. The timber skeleton of such a building is generally known as a box frame. By the time that Ravenser Odd was being developed (s.p.b.s) Holderness, north Lincolnshire and the River Hull valley already had scarce timber reserves and Scandinavian softwoods were a commodity imported. Willow branches to cut and split to create the base for the puddled clay would have been more readily available.

The photo in the previous blog was taken inside 51, Fleetgate, Barton on Humber where the rear part of the terrace property comprises a surviving complete late medieval box frame with mostly wattle and daub infil (although some contemporary bricks-on-side in places). The property was, almost certainly, built as a merchants/trader’s property and would originally have been open-plan between floor and roof underside and was roughly contemporary (probably somewhat later) with the rise of Ravenser (Odd). The timber frame at 51, Fleetgate is very extensive and more modest properties could have got away with a less comprehensive box frame.

We might also ask the same questions of the church built on Ravenser (Odd). The Meaux Abbey Chronicle records that by the 1340s this building had been lost to the sea (eroded away) and that what human remains had been recovered were to be re-interred in Easington churchyard. What were its building materials? How extensive was it? Did it reflect the features of the later called ‘geometric’ architectural style fashionable at the time. Given the shortness of time between the town/port beginning to be developed and its loss to coastal erosion, little more than two generations, it must be supposed that the church was a modest structure.