New light is being shed on the dramatic rise and fall of a mysterious medieval island, Ravenser Odd, which has been dubbed ‘Yorkshire’s Atlantis’.
Ravenser Odd first appeared around 1230, emerging from the sea close to the mouth of the Humber. Subsequent accounts vary on how it eventually became a royal borough with a population of at least 1,000 people.
A new exhibition brings the colourful story of Ravenser Odd up to date
One version of the emergence of Ravenser Odd suggests that a natural accumulation of sand and stones was first used by fishermen to dry their nets. Another more colourful account involves a wrecked ship being stolen and converted into the island’s first home and trading post.
Either way, for the next 130 years Ravenser Odd was accused of being run by pirates, fought a bitter trade dispute with the nearby port of Grimsby, and was ruled by one of wealthiest women in the country before it disappeared under the waves after being ‘annihilated by the sea’ in the 1350s.
Now a new exhibition at the Hull History Centre is telling the story of Ravenser Odd and bringing the tale up to date with a lecture by experts from the University of Hull attempting to locate the remains of the lost island and imagined images of the settlement by Hull artist Gareth Sleightholme.
The elusive and obscure story of a lost royal borough
The exhibition also features a charter roll dating from 1299 and loaned from the National Archives which lists both Ravenser Odd and neighbouring Hull as new boroughs with royal charters.
City archivist Martin Taylor said:
“The charter roll was effectively the ‘office copy’ of the ceremonial charter which officially made the island a self-governing body with rights and privileges granted by the King.
“While we have Hull’s ceremonial charter, Ravenser Odd’s is sadly lost like the island itself. As it is, thanks to the National Archives, we believe this is the first time the 1299 charter roll has been back in this part of the world for 725 years.”
Historian Emily Robinson, from the University of Sussex, has helped curate the exhibition and is currently writing a book about the island. She said:
“It’s a story literally built on shifting sands which is elusive, obscure and – like the island’s name – undeniably odd. There are at least four different written versions of the name, and no-one really knows where the island was actually located. Some say it was in the sea, others say it was in the mouth of the Humber.
“What makes it really fascinating is that it became wealthy astonishingly quickly and developed into a prosperous town with a church, two windmills, a tannery and a busy manorial court while its royal charter granted the right to hold a weekly market and an annual month-long fair.”
Prosperity, wealth and … piracy
The islanders’ interception of passing ships and their cargo and the introduction of landing tolls infuriated merchants in nearby Grimsby and led them to complain to the king that the new island was stealing their trade.
Later, the islanders were repeatedly accused of extortion, theft, boarding and looting ships and even murder after a gang reputedly took over a German ship, killed its captain, threw the crew overboard and then sold the goods to collaborators on the island.
Despite its notorious reputation, Ravenser Odd was also home to extensive wealth.
Before Edward I took control in 1299, the island had been ruled by Isabella de Fortibus, the widow of the Count of Albemarle, who was one of the wealthiest women in England and also owner of the Isle of Wight. Later, Cecily de Selby became one of the major property owners on the island, owning 145 houses there.
Ravenser Odd’s grisly demise: a penalty for ‘wrong-doing on the sea’
A series of documented requests for funding from the king for repairs to the island’s quay provide evidence of its eventual demise. Increasingly battered by the sea, the population sought safety on the mainland.
No-one knows exactly when Ravenser Odd succumbed to the waves but a vivid and grisly description in a chronicle written around 1400 by a local abbot says that in 1355 “the inundation of the sea and the Humber had destroyed the foundations of the chapel of Ravenser Odd … so that the corpses and bones of the dead there horribly appeared, and the same inundations daily threatened the destruction of the said town.”
The clergyman chronicler blamed the island for the flood, adding:
“By wrong-doing on the sea, by its wicked works and piracies, it provoked the wrath of God against itself by all measure.”
Hull/Ravenser Odd; Twin Cities, Sunken Pasts is at the Hull History Centre, Worship Street, Hull, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 9.30am to 4.30pm, until 30 May. Free Entry.
