Spurn Head - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

SPURN HEAD, or Spurn Point, a foreland of the North Sea coast of England, in Yorkshire, projecting across the mouth of the Humber. Its length is nearly 4 m. from the village of Kilnsea, but its breadth seldom exceeds 300 yds., and it rises only a few feet above sea-level. It is formed of sand and shingle, the debris of the soft coast of Holderness to the north, from which it is estimated that six million tons of material are annually removed by southerly currents along the shore. Deep water is found close off the seaward side of Spurn Head, the formation of which appears to have taken place within historic times, even since about the close of the 16th century. There are two lighthouses and a lifeboat station on the head.