Keyingham Parish information from Bulmers' 1892.

KEYINGHAM:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1892.

Wapentake of Holderness (South Division) - County Council Electoral Division of Keyingham - Petty Sessional Division of South Holderness - Poor Law Union of Patrington - County Court District of Hedon - Rural Deanery of Hedon - Archdeaconry of the East Riding - Diocese of York.

This parish is situated in the low flat district lying on the north bank of the Humber. Its area, including Salthaugh, is 3,548 acres, of which the rateable value is £5,475. The number of inhabitants in 1891 was 587, a decrease of 48 since the previous census. Nearly one-half of the parish is marsh land, which has been rendered fertile and productive by an extensive system of drainage, carried out under powers of several acts of parliament. The soil on the more elevated grounds is a deep marly clay with sand and gravel; in the low marshes it is a deep warp clay deposited by the waters of the Humber. The crops vary according to the light or strong nature of the soil. A creek of the Humber, known as Keyingham Creek, formerly extended nearly to Salthaugh, dividing this parish from Sunk Island. It was here that the captain of the "Providence," a small ship carrying 30 guns and laden with arms and ammunition, purchased in Holland for the use of the Royalists, ran the vessel aground to prevent her capture by the Roundheads. The channel is now nearly warped up. Sir Frederick Augustus Talbot Clifford-Constable, Bart., is lord of the manor and one of the largest landowners; the other proprietors are the trustees of the Charity for the Sons of the Clergy, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, William Henry Harrison-Broadley, Esq., of Welton, Brough; Mr. Daniel Brown, of Keyingham; George C. Francis, Esq., C.C., of Salthaugh Grange; Miss E. Oldfield, Mrs. Beal, of Keyingham; Mr. Ingram, of Marton; Watson's Trustees; and Messrs. George and Michael Suddaby Meadley, of Sunk Island.

The manor was held, in the days of the last Saxon king, by Toruerd; when the commissioners of William the Conqueror made their report, it was in the hands of Drogo, and Chaingeham had then its church and priest. Subsequently considerable portions of the land and the church were given to the Abbey of Meaux, and they remained in the possession of that house till the Reformation.

The village is pleasantly situated five miles south-east of Hedon, five miles north-west of Patrington, nine-and-a-half miles west by south of Hull, and in close proximity to the station of its own name, on the Hull and Withernsea branch of the North-Eastern railway. Near the centre of the village is the base of an ancient cross, consisting of the lower part of the shaft, elevated on three steps. On the sides are blank shields. Another cross stood in a field on the west side of the village, originally the site of an ancient road across the common. It is called St. Philip's Cross, and in a field near by is a well bearing the same dedication. The remains of this cross have been removed, and now stand near the side door of Ebor House, on the glebe farm.

The church of St. Nicholas is an ancient building of stone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave with two aisles, chantry chapel, and a western tower with octagonal spire, which has for centuries been one of the landmarks for vessels navigating the Humber. The chancel was restored by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1885, and the rest of the fabric was partially restored in 1888, under the direction of Mr. F. S. Broderick, architect, of Hull. The sum of £1,500 was expended, but a further sum of £800 is required to complete the work. The nave and south aisle have been re-roofed, and the pillars which had been with barbarous taste cut away to admit of the high backs of the pews, have been restored. The unsightly gallery at the west end - a post-Reformation deformity - has been removed, and the church re-seated with open benches of pitchpine. During the progress of the work a piscina was discovered in the chantry chapel, and an opening in the wall of the nave on the north side of the chancel, which is believed to have been the means of access to the rood loft. The nave is divided from the aisles on each side by four pointed arches, resting on clustered quatrefoil columns; and two similar arches separate the chantry chapel from the chancel. There are marble tablets in the church to the memory of members of the Ombler, Tindall, and Benson families, and one to the late Rev. Joshua Smyth, who after a ministry of 54 years in this church, died at Colchester in 1878. Near the pulpit is the iron frame of an hour glass, supposed to date from the time of Queen Elizabeth.

The living is a discharged vicarage, gross yearly value £300, including 33 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Archbishop of York, and held by the Rev. Jeremiah Sharp Thomlinson, B.A., of Queen's College, Oxford. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners are the impropriators of the great tithes, commuted for a rentcharge of £409, and they are also the owners of the rectory farm, containing upwards of 400 acres. The vicarage is a commodious residence of brick, erected in 1879, and stands a little east of the village.

There are chapels here belonging to the Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists, erected in 1848 and 1846 respectively.

A School Board, consisting of five members, was formed in 1873; and in 1875 a commodious school, with master's residence attached, was erected at a cost of £1,700, borrowed from the Public Works Loan Board. It is a mixed school, with accommodation for 105 children, and an average attendance of 90. Edward Ombler, Esq., of Salthaugh Grange, left in 1802, the interest of £200 for educational purposes, and Edward Marritt, a former schoolmaster, who died in 1811, left a legacy, with which was purchased five acres of land. These endowments are applied by the Board in granting remissions of school fees to poor children. The school was originally held in the chantry chapel; and in 1835 new premises were built, by the landowners and inhabitants, upon a site given by the Archbishop.

A Foresters Hall was erected in 1857. It will seat 300 persons, and is used for public meetings, entertainments, &c. The Ancient Order of Foresters, Court Friendship, was established here in 1840, and now numbers about 400 members. Their meetings are held in the Hall. The old National School has been converted into The People's Institute, and here also the local lodge of the Independent Order of Oddfellows transact their business.

Near the village is the Oldfield property, long identified with the name of Owst, from which family it descended by marriage to the late Mr. Oldfield. The late Mr. T. T. Owst was a diligent collector of antiquities, and, among others, recovered the old Winestead font in which Andrew Marvell had been baptised. He had also in his grounds an ancient cross, 14 feet high, brought here from a distance, and the stump of another which originally stood near the Watts' Arms Inn, in the village of Ottringham. The former was removed, and re-erected in Keyingham churchyard in 1888. The Owst family had also land in Halsham, which was for a long time their principal residence. They were staunch adherents of the old religion, and had consequently to endure much hardship from the penal laws. The following certificate, quoted by Mr. Poulson in his History of Holderness, shows the disabilities under which Catholics laboured, even so lately as the middle of last century. It runs thus : - " East Riding of the County of York. Whereas Thomas Owst, of Halsham, in the East Riding of the County of York, is a popish recusant, and therefore, by the Act of Parliament, cannot go and travel out of the compass of five miles from the usual place of his abode, unless upon necessary occasions on business, and first taking the oath and being licensed thereto as the Act of Parliament directs. And whereas the said Thomas Owst hath requested us, four of his majesties' justices of the peace for the said Riding, with the privity and assent of one of the deputy lieutenants of the said Riding, to grant unto him a license to travel from his said usual place of abode, to Drax, in the West Riding of the County of York, to see his wife, who is very ill there at the house of his son-in-law, and he having made oath thereof as the Act directs. These are, therefore, to license the said Thomas Owst to go and travell this day from his usual habitation to Drax aforesaid, and to return to his said usual habitaon on Wednesday, the fifteenth day of January, or sooner. Given under our hands and seals, this eighteenth day of December, 1745. Fran. Appleyard, Hugh Bethell, James Gee, R. Barnaby. Marm. Constable, Deputy Lieutenant of the said Riding."

SALTAUGH GRANGE, an estate containing 875 acres of land (400 of which are in Paull parish), is situated near the Humber, from which it is protected by an embankment. It was given by one of its early owners to the Abbey of Meaux. It now belongs to the Charity of the Sons of the Clergy, by which institution it was purchased some years ago, and is farmed by George Cole Francis, Esq., who is member for the Keyingham Division of the East Riding County Council. The house, which occupies the site of the ancient grange, is a brick structure standing about two-and-a-half miles south of Keyingham.

[Description(s) from Bulmer's History and Directory of East Yorkshire (1892)]

Directories

• Transcript of the entry for the Post Office, professions and trades in Bulmer's Directory of 1892.

Scan, OCR and html by Colin Hinson. Checking and correction by Peter Nelson.