Welcome to TheSutherlands and Keyingham in Holderness, East Yorkshire.

For those of you out there wondering where and what actually is Holderness, then take a look at this map. Holderness is the low lying area bounded by the Humber Estuary and Spurn Head to the South, by Hull and the hills of the Yorkshire Wolds to the West, and by the North Sea to the East. It was described by Philip Larkin as:

lonelier and lonelier, and after that the birds and lights of Spurn Head, and after that the sea.

J.R.R.Tolkien, convalescing in the village of Roos at the end of the First World War, and out walking with Edith, his wife, commented:

We walked in a wood where hemlock was growing, a sea of white flowers

Her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes bright, and she could sing - and dance.

This became the solid basis for Tolkien's tale of Beren & Luthien, and indeed each of these names were inscribed on their respective tombstones.

Coming back to earth with a resounding thud ..... the land is very fertile consisting of boulder clay left by the last Ice Age and alluvium on the Humber flood plain. Much of this land bordering the Humber is reclaimed; indeed one small village is known as "Sunk Island." Two other claims to fame or otherwise for Holderness are that there are more pigs than people, and that it's coastline is being eroded at the fastest rate in Europe.

I've always struggled with the concept of a personal website. Now I'm not saying that people shouldn't have the freedom to create them, but that it appears to me to be a rather conceited idea that the world at large should be in the least bit interested in what I have to say or believe. With this in mind, the general aim of this website is to provide information about the locality, which I find interesting but also may be of use to other people. So, make yourself at home, have a good look round, and feel free to leave your comments.

As and when I get round to it, I will include photographs of the region. As you move your mouse over the map above, the pointer will change to a hand when there is a photo of the area. Left click to see the image for this place. Some of the images are associated with walks and also contain GPX information .... see the GPS/Walking page for more information. Note that you have to have 'popups' and javascript enabled for this feature to work.