Keyingham

In common with many villages in England, the earliest recorded reference to Keyingham in 1087 was in William the Conqueror's Domesday Book. There is evidence, however, that people have occupied the site since Roman times. The surrounding land was marshy under the influence of the Humber, and the higher and drier ground would have allowed the settlement by Anglo-Saxons in the 5th or 6th centuries. This is in accordance with the use of 'ham', 'ing', and 'ingham' by the Anglo-Saxons as suffixes to village names. The end of the 9th century brought the arrival of the Danes, before the Norman Conquest and William's great survey of his kingdom.

Falling sea levels during the 11th century exposed large areas of siltland, which were reclaimed for agriculture by creating embankments and draining the land. It was not a one-way process however, as sea levels rose again in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is recorded in the Meaux Abbey chronicle that:

... the Humber, exceeding it's limits, submerged the greatest part of Holderness and caused the greatest destruction. ... many of our lands at Saltaugh and Myton were entirely washed into the Humber. Wherefore those our lands remained almost sterile and produced us scarcely any fruit.

Despite such set backs, drainage projects continued right into the the 20th century to leave the modern farmers of Keyingham with very rich land for cultivation