"Eastern England from the Thames to the Humber" by Walter White

Some extracts from:-"Eastern England from the Thames to the Humber" by Walter White, London: Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly. 1865. 

Walter White walked to Cleethorpes from the south.  The book was published in 1865, but the trip may have been before Cleethorpes Railway Station was opened in 1863. 


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Farther on we ascended to a firm road; and crossed the haven by the clough, and so came to Saltfleet; a dull village on elevated ground, where the courtyard of the inn is overgrown with grass, and general stagnation appears to prevail. ..........

The New Inn, where the only viands were eggs and bacon, echoed hollow and empty to our footfall, and looked somewhat desolate. But we found in that grassy court-yard a spring of excellent water, which on a coast where good water is scarce gave us no little satisfaction.
Having no desire to see more of the saltmarsh, I resolved on continuing my walk by a road within the sea-wall.........to get as far as I could on the way to Cleethorpes by eventide.

The road soon led me into rural scenes, where the only signs of the sea are occasional glimpses of a shaggy sand-hill or of the distant level of the sea-wall: where you meet bright red carts, or black carts with bright red wheels, and wagons which exhibit on their yellow front three oval shields bearing the name and address of the owner and maker: where the rick-thatch is kept from blowing away by a number of cords thrown across weighted at each end with a brick, and the stacks look curious with a row of bricks dangling on each side; and where rustic damsels shout to the loiterer of their party, "Naw then, ur ye coomin' hoam? ye silly-lookin' mawkin."

So to North Somercotes, where "ye want to goo by that guide-post, and thruff the ma'shes by the fut-road," informed me at once as to the route to Grainthorpe, and as to a way of pronouncing through which I had never before heard. "Thruff the ma'shes," for through the marshes, might make once fancy that Anglo-Saxon churls are not yet extinct.

From Grainthorpe onwards my view was spoiled by heavy driving rain, which made the landscape look very dreary, and prepared me to appreciate the kitchen fire of the Crown and Anchor at Tetney Lock, where I arrived wet and cold an hour before sunset. The house is one of half a dozen situate a mile from the haven on the canal by which Louth communicates with the sea, and is frequented by boatmen and rustics, in whose talk a curious stranger will discover evidence of nearness to Yorkshire, and somewhat of local peculiarity. To lie is to lig: "She'll lig there a month," said a tough old fellow, speaking of his boat, "now that I hev hugged all the coal mysen;" meaning that he had carried it ashore on his own back. .....................

The country hereabouts is parcelled into numerous small holdings, and population is pretty thickly sprinkled, and cottages extend so far along the road, that it is not easy to tell where one village ends and the other begins. Some of the company boasted that the best feeding land in all Lincolnshire lay between Saltfleet and Grimsby. ........... It gladdened me to hear how the party warmed with their talk, and to observe how thoroughly they appreciated the advantage of living in a district where "a man could do some good for hisself with a bit o' land, and happen pay for moor 'n half on't with his fust 'ear's crop." The good old times when every rood of ground maintained its man, could hardly have been better. "They wuzzent so good," answered one of the men to whom I addressed the remark," 't wuzzent so easy to get 'ur crops to markut in them owd times. There wuzzent no railway 'ithin four or five mile on us uz there is now."
Tetney Lock is two miles from a church. "At winter time," said the hostess, "a clergyman comes here and preaches in the watch-house."

What a delightful morning saluted me when I looked forth on the morrow; and what a sense of freedom there was in the broad pastures across which runs the footway to Cleethorpes! How delightfully fresh and green the grass looked after the rain; and the air had that quickening influence which makes a wayfarer sing. With leagues of 'feeding land' far outspread, on which, sheep and cattle apart, nothing but a stripe of hedgerow, a shepherd's shed and three trees, there was full play for the sense of freedom. On I walked, crossing from pasture to pasture by the foot-bridges, while the tops of white sails appearing above the level bank a mile or two distant on the right, showed that I was not far from the northern limit of my journey. ..................

From the broad pastures the path led me to the bank, whence I looked upon the mighty Humber. There, far across the green expanse, I saw the tall red lighthouse of the Spurn; the distant lightship; the low wooded shores of Holderness, and all that interesting region .............
Here, between the bank and the broad saltmarsh, I saw patches of sea-holly. I had looked for the plant in all our journey from the Wash, but noticed only one solitary example of it near Saltfleet. It grows abundantly along the Yorkshire coast, while the sea-thorn appears to prefer Lincolnshire.

A little farther and there Cleethorpes opens in the view; red houses and a windmill crowning a bluff that seems to be the termination of a branch ridge running from the wolds to the Humber. Of this situation the growing village is not a little proud, for of all the Lincolnshire water-places it alone can boast of a cliff. From this modest elevation, which, as may be inferred from the term clee, is composed mostly of clay, the visitors who use it as their chief resort and lounging-place can overlook the beach, and the breezy common; the strollers and donkeys; the cocklers; bathing-machines, and all that sails the water between the two shores. Trips to Spurn, seven miles distant, are among its recreations for adventurous boating-parties.
From Cleethorpes it is about an hour's walk along the beach to Grimsby, where the tall tower of the docks rises conspicuously against the sky. The way is toilsome, and the neighbourhood of the town so unprepossessing that you will pity the troops of excursionists who are attracted thither by low fares, seductive advertisements, and hope of a view of the sea. The long dull walk from the railway station is enough to dishearten even the sanguine; but if that should fail, their first prospect of the beach will at once lower their tone. But there are loud noises near the docks and other signs of trade, and if you are curious to know who is the principal customer you may infer it from the number of German sailors who saunter about, or congregate where the Hamburg Borsenhalle is 'taken in.'

Grass grows in some of the old streets ...........

The market-place was thronged with country-folk, who amid their buying and selling found time to listen to the noisy babble of rival Cheap Jacks, and to Professor Gammon, Q.D., quack-doctor, from Hull, who stood on a chair to hold forth...............

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