It is pathetic to think of the historic churches, beautiful villages, and smiling pastures that have been swept away by the relentless sea.  There are no less than twelve towns and villages in Yorkshire that have been thus buried, and five in Suffolk.  Ravensburgh, in the former county, was once a flourishing seaport.  Here landed Henry IV in 1399, and Edward IV in 1471.  It returned two members to Parliament.  An old picture of the place shows the church, a large cross, and houses; but it has vanished with the neighbouring villages of Redmare, Tharlethorp, Frismarch, and Potterfleet, and “left not a wrack behind.”  Leland mentions it in 1538, after which time its place in history and on the map knows it no more.  The ancient church of Kilnsea lost half its fabric in 1826, and the rest followed in 1831.  Alborough Church and the Castle of Grimston have entirely vanished.  Mapleton Church was formerly two miles from the sea; it is now on a cliff with the sea at its feet, awaiting the final attack of the all-devouring enemy.  Nearly a century ago Owthorne Church and churchyard were overwhelmed, and the shore was strewn with ruins and shattered coffins.  On the Tyneside the destruction has been remarkable and rapid.  In the district of Saltworks there was a house built standing on the cliff, but it was never finished, and fell a prey to the waves.  At Percy Square an inn and two cottages have been destroyed.  The edge of the cliff in 1827 was eighty feet seaward, and the banks of Percy Square receded a hundred and eighty feet between the years 1827 and 1892.  Altogether four acres have disappeared.  An old Roman building, locally known as “Gingling Geordie’s Hole,” and large masses of the Castle Cliff fell into the sea in the ’eighties.  The remains of the once flourishing town of Seaton, on the Durham coast, can be discovered amid the sands at low tide.  The modern village has sunk inland, and cannot now boast of an ancient chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, which has been devoured by the waves.

Skegness, on the Lincolnshire coast, was a large and important town; it boasted of a castle with strong fortifications and a church with a lofty spire; it now lies deep beneath the devouring sea, which no guarding walls could conquer.  Far out at sea, beneath the waves, lies old Cromer Church, and when storms rage its bells are said to chime.  The churchyard wherein was written the pathetic ballad “The Garden of Sleep” is gradually disappearing, and “the graves of the fair women that sleep by the cliffs by the sea” have been outraged, and their bodies scattered and devoured by the pitiless waves.