The parish of Paull is situated in what was once the wapentake of Holderness, South division, part of the historical East Riding of Yorkshire (see maps in Introduction). Before the 1832 parish boundary changes it included the sub-parishes and localities of High Paull, Paull Holme, Boreas Hill, Little Humber, Newton Garth and Thorngumbald. Paull is an Anglian name which was spelt variously Paul, Paghel, Paghill, Pagula, etc. The village was known as Paullfleet in the mid 13th century and as Low Paull in the 18th. Similarly High Paull was previously known as Over or Up Paull. In 1935 Thorngumbald became a separate civil parish, taking in Camerton, which had hitherto been attached to Paull for ecclesiastical purposes and to Burstwick for civil purposes, and Ryehill, which had also been attached to Burstwick for civil purposes.

In 1066 Earl Tostig’s manor of Burstwick included, among other settlements, Paull, Camerton, (Paull) Holme, Newton (Garth), Thorn(gumbald). After the Conquest it was awarded to Drogo de la Beuvrière as part of his single holding of Holderness, which later descended with the counts of Aumale until 1274, when it reverted to the Crown. Thereafter various parts of the Burstwick estate were regarded as separate manors. Paullfleet was mentioned as a manor in 1339. It passed through various hands, but from the mid 16th century it was in the possession of the Constable and Chichester-Constable families, who in 1672 had a house with eight hearths there. In 1769 William Constable acquired a newly formed sandbank and sold Paull manor, at the time made up of Paullfleet and Up Paull. These lands eventually became the property of the Crown.

The lighthouse at Paull was erected in 1836, providing a more efficient way to guide ships away from the treacherous sandbanks than the lights placed in the windows of the Humber Tavern! It had been decommissioned by the 1870s owing to shifting sandbank channels and has since become a private home. New lights were erected to the north and south of the village to replace it, but only those standing on the sand spit known as Thorngumbald Clough are still in existence.

High Paull lies less than a kilometre downriver from Paull and is the site of the church and Paull Battery. High Paull House was also built there, sharing the higher ground with the church. It became the manor house of Paullfleet and Up Paull in 1579, was purchased by the War Department in 1861 and was demolished after 1900.

A church standing on the Humber at Paull Holme was first mentioned in 1155, but by the mid 1300s it had fallen into decay and was finally destroyed by the river. Its replacement was built at High Paull, but its new position behind Paull Battery made it vulnerable, and it was damaged during an attack on the battery in 1643. The building remained untouched until the restoration of Charles II, during whose reign in the late 1600s its damaged parts were repaired. Originally dedicated to St. Mary, the church later received the additional dedication of St. Andrew, but is today known as simply St. Andrew’s. Its varied dedication perhaps reflects the fate inflicted upon it by man and nature, causing it to be rebuilt and displaced. The distich “High Paull, Low Paull, and Paull Holme, There never was a fair maid married in Paull town” is a reflection on the different places where the church stood, rather than on the beauty of the women of the parish. The current building was built in the Perpendicular style and has a cruciform plan with a three stage crossing tower of coursed limestone and a chancel of ashlar, but the near contemporary aisled nave and short transepts are of cheaper cobble. There are fragments of medieval glass in east window, and St. Andrew’s shares a feature with St. Wilfred’s at Ottringham: a stone lectern in the north wall of the chancel. Major restoration was carried out in the 1870s when many traces of fire were revealed. A vicarage was built in 1859 and still stands in its own park to the north west of the church.

In 1542 Paull Battery with its twelve guns was built at High Paull between the church and the Humber as part of Henry VIII’s fortifications of Hull. It underwent many transformations over the following centuries. In 1642 Charles I came in person to inspect the newly rebuilt battery and his forces during the siege of Hull. However, it was Parliamentarian cause that prevailed, when the battery were destroyed by cannon fire from rebel ships in 1643. During the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s a new battery was built but dismantled soon afterwards. It was again rebuilt at the time of the Crimean war in the 1850s and underwent another rebuild in the 1860s following the decommissioning of Hull Citadel. In the early 20th century it lost its defensive role, being used as a store and a training base, and during the Second World War as an ammunition dump. This is the battery that still stands today, having been decommissioned and finally sold into private hands in 1960. Renamed Fort Paull, despite never having been a garrison, it is now a historical military site with an award winning museum.

Paull Holme also stands on a high, well drained site to the south east of High Paull. During its ownership by the Aumales part of its lands became known as the manor, but another part was granted to the Stuteville family in the 13th century. The same part later came in to the hands of the family that took the name Holme, and remained so until they sold it in the 20th century. The Holme family’s house was recorded in the 14th century and was either rebuilt or enlarged in the 15th. It was moated and included a chapel, but all that remains is the three storey brick tower with its vaulted basement, which was formerly attached to the northern end of a timber framed hall. The tower is 30 feet high with battlements and small loophole windows. It is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a cow which somehow climbed up the narrow staircase to the battlements in 1840, and, unable to get back down, fell to its death. In 2005 the Paull Holme Preservation Society was formed with a view to restoring or at least preserving the tower and its environs, though much material from the house had already been used in the building of the nearby farmhouse in 1837.

Boreas Hill is a glacial moraine that rises to the giddy height of 15 metres above sea level in an area renowned for its flatness. Boreas Hall, formerly Boar House or Bower House, was built nearby of red brick in the Flemish style in the first half of the 18th century. The two storey rear porch was built in 1936 of material from the 17th century George Inn, formerly of High Street, Hull. the hall’s grounds once extended over 300 acres.

Little Humber had a grange by the late 12th century, and a manor house was recorded here in 1260, which most likely stood in the moated area to the north of the current farm house. The latter was built in the late 1600s but underwent later alterations and additions and has recently been restored.

Newton Garth is the area north of the village of Paull where the leper hospital of St. Mary Magdalen previously stood. It was founded in the 1170s by William le Gros, count of Aumale, who gave it the estate of Newton as a foundation gift. The hospital was still in existence in the mid 1500s, but its revenues were seized and its patients ejected during the Reformation. A large gabled house built in the Tudor style of red brick and stone bands in c1870 stands there.

Thorngumbald was recorded as Torne in Domesday and Thorne in Kirkby’s Inquest. By the 1280s it had passed from the counts of Aumale to the Gombault family, the latter being the originators of the anglicised version of the village’s suffix Gumbald (though my neigbours in 1960s Hull kept to the original spelling). By the reign of Edward II in the early 1300s it was known by an intermediary version, Thorne Gumbaud, transitioning to Thorngumbaud and finally in the modern era to Thorngumbald. After two generations of Gombaults, the village descended by inheritance through the female line, including the Holme family of Paull Holme, and later by sale via various local families. A local businessman built a mansion in the village which was finished in 1770 and by 1872 had become known as Thorngumbald Hall. In 1880 it was demolished by a later owner who replaced it with a large Jacobean style house of red brick with shaped gables and stone mullioned bay windows. The house is now known simply as Thorn Hall and is currently a residential care home.

Thorngumbald church, dedicated to St. Mary and formerly belonging to the monks of Aumale in Normandy, was a small medieval building, consisting of a nave, a chancel, a south vestry and a north porch. Restoration and rebuilding has been carried out throughout the church’s history, so much so that at first glance from afar it appears to be just another Victorian chapel. On closer examination, the predominant red brick is revealed to be patching of the ancient limestone rubble and ashlar. The original chancel standing to the east of the building has been demolished, so that the nave and chancel are currently undivided. The oldest remaining features are the doors to the nave and vestry and the small cylindrical granite font, all dating from the 12th century. Even the brick tower, built in 1768, was demolished in 1858 and replaced by the current bellcote. St. Mary’s became the church of Thorngumbald parish at its establishment in 1988.

A Thomas Pikering lived in Flamborough in the early 1500s. Based on circumstantial evidence provided by names and places, I have made him the founder of the offshoot of the Puckerings of Flamborough that became the Puckerings of Bempton. Thomas had three sons: Thomas, Robert and Ralph. The name Robert was a recurring name in the Flamborough family, while Ralph recurred in the Bempton family up until the 20th century, following the progression of this family down the coast of the East Riding through Bridlington, Hornsea, Hilston, Tunstall and Withernsea, to Patrington and Paull on the Humber estuary. The first three generations were recorded as Pyckering, transitioning to Puckering after their move to Bridlington, but those who settled in Hornsea and the ports further down the coast and on the Humber estuary adopted the more common spelling of Pickering. The Pickerings of Holderness are also well represented Paull, starting with the marriage of Mary of the 21st generation and the burial of Michael of the 23rd generation, to the baptisms of several Pickerings of the 24th generation. The Pickerings of Preston are an offshoot of the Holderness family; Edward of the 24th generation and his son John lived in Thorngumbald and had their bricklayers’ yard in the village. Some life events of the Pickerings of Skeckling cum Burstwick, another offshoot of the vast Holderness family, are recorded in Paull. Finally, the Pickerings of Melbourne held an estate at Boreas Vale, presumably centred on Boreas Vale Farm on the road between Boreas Hill and Thorngumbald.

Sources:

https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ERY/Paull
https://opendomesday.org/place/TA1626/paull
Victoria History of the County of York, East Riding, vol. 5, pp. 111-127
Bulmer’s History, Topography and Directory of East Yorkshire with Hull 1892, pp. 476-480: https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4/id/324025
History and Topography of Yorkshire, vol. 2, York, Ainsty, East Riding, pp. 341-343: https://books.google.fr/books?redir_esc=y&id=unEKAQAAMAAJ
The Buildings of England, York and the East Riding, pp. 645-647: https://archive.org/details/yorkshireyorkeas0000pevs/page/645
Paul Parish Council: https://www.paullcouncil.co.uk/?page_id=208

Paull and High Paull:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paull
https://intel-hub.eastriding.gov.uk/parish-profile/#/view-report/bd6a0cb7f85a46998f874a42bfd0dc8e/PP111
The Buildings of England, York and the East Riding, pp. 645-647: https://archive.org/details/yorkshireyorkeas0000pevs/page/645
Paull Lighthouse: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1161853?section=official-list-entry
High Lighthouse: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1309912?section=official-list-entry
Low Lighthouse: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1083435?section=official-list-entry
Church of Saint Andrew: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1083434?section=official-list-entry
Paull Battery: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1020425?section=official-list-entry

Paull Holme:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paull_Holme_Tower
Paull Holme Tower: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1366242?section=official-list-entry
https://www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/English%20sites/1063.html

Boreas Hill:
Hall: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1083433?section=official-list-entry

Little Humber:
Old Little Humber Farm: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1161780?section=official-list-entry

Thorngumbald:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorngumbald
https://intel-hub.eastriding.gov.uk/parish-profile/#/view-report/bd6a0cb7f85a46998f874a42bfd0dc8e/PP144
Thorngumbald: that village yon side of Hedon
The Buildings of England, York and the East Riding, pp. 722-723: https://archive.org/details/yorkshireyorkeas0000pevs/page/722
Church of Saint Mary: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1083443?section=official-list-entry
St Mary, Thorngumbald: https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=10120