Heritage Day at Sunk Island

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Every summer the diminutive parish of Sunk Island puts on a heritage event, displaying billboards about the social and environmental history of the place, as well as selling a few mementos. I was invited to attend today’s to help with carrying some of the materials in and out.

The event is hosted at Holy Trinity Church, which ceased to operate as a place of worship in 1983 but remains open as a community centre (especially since the demolition of the village hall nearby). The history of the church itself (including the contest between rival Christian denominations for recruitment of parishioners) was a major theme of the display. The other big theme was the dredging up of the mud banks, followed by the cutting of new drains and the building of the sluice gates.

Some of the displays looked like they had been made many years ago and brought out unedited each time. There is a familiar style common to these kinds of displays by churches, village halls and primary schools in small settlements in rural Britain around the turn of the millennium. In particular I noticed a poster about the Crown Estate, which still referred to it paying for the civil list (as opposed to the sovereign grant).

What particularly piqued my interest was a patchwork quilt entitled “Treasures of Holderness”, each patch made by a member of a local sewing group. That by Sue Daniels showed the shield of arms of Holderness Borough Council. The full achievement was also shown on a wooden plaque affixed to the wall of the entrance hall. The borough itself, along with its governing council,was dissolved in 1996 and merged into the East Riding of Yorkshire unitary authority. Holderness no longer has a heraldic personhood distinct from the rest of the county but the old arms carry on informally by force of cultural inertia. None of the individual parishes seem to have arms individually granted.

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