The Smugglers of Spurn

A tale of smuggling on the East Yorkshire coast, around Spurn Point, some 25 miles east of Hull on the North Bank of the Humber Estuary. Published in the Hull Weekly Express over two weeks, the first part on 1st August 1885, “The Smugglers of Spurn” follows the entwined fortunes of a young Coast Guard; Will Hardisty, and his love, Susan Nettleby; the daughter of a smuggler.

Preface

The extreme south-east corner of Yorkshire, as our geographies inform us, is a long, narrow neck of land, jutting out into the German Ocean, and called Spurn Point. This is one of nature’s blockades, constantly undergoing change. Formed on a tract of low land, which has long ago been destroyed by the set of the current southward, it is ever renewed by the detritus brought by that current from the cliffs to the north. Many thousands of tons have likewise been carried away in ships as ballast, or for other purposes; and to such an extent was the Point at one period denuded, that the eventual total destruction of this natural defence seemed to be inevitable; but the practice having been discontinued we are perhaps permanently saved from that invasion by the North Sea which was threatened by its slow denudation. Thus it will be understood how, whatever appearance Spurn may present at the present day, it is quite impossible to describe it minutely, as seen in the days of our great grandfathers, to which period we are about to refer.

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