The 4 fascinating estates owned by Her Majesty the Queen in East Yorkshire

THE CROWN ESTATE MAKES UP 8,100 HECTARES OF AGRICULTURAL LAND IN THE REGION

THE Crown Estate belongs to the reigning monarch and generates income via a portfolio of UK buildings, shoreline, seabed, forestry, agriculture and common land.

Four of these sites are in East Yorkshire- Derwent, Gardham, Sunk Island and Swine. They are not the private property of the Queen and all money earned from the Crown Estate goes to the treasury but then 25 per cent of that revenue goes back to the Royal family.

The East Yorkshire Crown Estate is mainly agricultural land but has some interesting history behind it. The Crown Estate dates back to the Norman Conquest when George III reached an agreement with the Government over the estate in 1760.

Information about this land is notoriously hard to find. However, here is what we know about the four sites that make up 8,100 hectares of East Yorkshire ...

1 Sunk Island

Sunk Island can be found in the depths of Holderness and is one of the oddest villages in East Yorkshire. Take a right turn at Ottringham on the road to Withernsea and you find yourself in the land of vast horizons and few features.

Trees are few and far between, but there are sections of spectacular avenues along some of the lanes and no one structure dominates the skyline. After three miles of emptiness there is a crossroads.

A phone box, a red brick church which now operates as a heritage centre and two houses form the heart of a remote community. That is as cluttered as it gets.

Head further south and you eventually reach the Humber and the evocatively-named Stone Creek, a horseshoe-shaped haven which is home to a handful of tiny boats.

The original Sunk Island - in reality a sand bank - first appeared above the water in 1560 lying around one and a half miles off the mainland. As it was created from the bed of a tidal estuary, it was claimed as Crown land and in 1668 it was leased by King Charles II to

Anthony Gilby, the governor of Hull.

Eventually, enough land was reclaimed for 15 farms and a number of small holdings to flourish while commercial fishing for shrimps and prawns was also carried out from Stone Creek.

Today, the creek is used by leisure craft while Sunk Island remains an isolated slab of agricultural curiosity. Thanks to its Victorian colonisation, it’s also a parish in its own right with a scattered population of around 200.

2 Derwent

The next site owned by the Queen is next to the village of Sutton upon Derwent. It consists of 900 hectares of agricultural land but apart from that, the site is fairly mysterious.

The nearby village also made the “poshest villages in the UK list”, put together by The Telegraph this year. With connections to the Queen, it is no surprise it made a feature.

3 Swine

The Swine Crown Estate is another huge agricultural area of land, consisting of 2,100 hectares. It’s neighbouring villages are Swine, Riston, Coniston, Ellerby, Skirlaugh and Wawne.

The area also consists of plenty of public footpaths and bridleways for countryside walks. It is also home to a beautiful church named The Priory Church of St Mary the Virgin.

4 Gardham

The Gardham Estate is the smallest of the East Yorkshire sites, consisting of only 400 hectares of land. Again, it is an agricultural site currently being used as farmland.

It is situated approximately five miles west of Beverley town centre and 2 miles west of the village of Cherry Burton