The Wolds meet the sea at Flamborough Head, a chalk headland, while the Holderness coast to the south is characterised by clay cliffs.

Then, as conditions continued to improve and vegetation could support a greater diversity of animals, the annual range of seasonal movement by Mesolithic communities decreased, and people became more fixed to particular localities.

As communities came to rely on a smaller territorial range and as population levels increased, they started to try to modify or control the natural world.

In the Great Wold Valley, pollen samples of Mesolithic date indicate that the forest cover in the area was being disturbed and altered by man, and that open grasslands were being created.

Two earthen long barrows in the region are found at Fordon, on Willerby Wold, and at Kilham, near Driffield, both of which have radiocarbon dates of around 3700 BC.

[13] As Christianity was established in the area from the 7th century onwards, several cemeteries like the one at Garton on the Wolds show evidence of the abandonment of pagan burial practices.

These lay lords and ecclesiastical institutions, including the monasteries, continued to improve and drain their holdings throughout the Middle Ages to maximise the rents they could charge for them.

[17] In the mid-16th century Henry VIII of England dissolved the monasteries, resulting in the large areas of land owned by Meaux Abbey, Bridlington Priory and other monastic holdings being confiscated.

The City of Kingston upon Hull is a separate unitary authority immediately to the south and forms part of the ceremonial county area.

The south-east of the district is the low-lying coastal plain of Holderness, which faces east to the North Sea, and to the south drains into the Humber Estuary.

The North Sea ice sheet deposited huge amounts of boulder clay as it retreated and this subsequently formed a wet and swampy area which became the plain of Holderness.

[22] Another ice sheet in the Vale of York retreated at the same time leaving thick glacial deposits and two prominent moraines to the west of the Wolds.

Because a lot of water was still locked in the northern ice sheets, sea level was much lower than in the present day and an area of land stretched eastwards to the low countries.

[24] The Wolds area takes the form of an elevated, gently rolling plateau, cut by numerous deep, steep-sided, flat-bottomed valleys of glacial origin.

The glacial deposits form a more or less continuous lowland plain which has some peat filled depressions (known locally as meres) which mark the presence of former lake beds.

The coastline has retreated noticeably in the last 2,000 years, with many former settlements now flooded, particularly Ravenser Odd and Ravenspurn, which was a major port until its destruction in the 14th century.

The latitude of the area means that it is influenced by predominantly westerly winds with depressions and their associated fronts, bringing with them unsettled and windy weather, particularly in winter.

For its latitude this area is mild in winter and cooler in summer due to the influence of the Gulf Stream in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

The two dominant influences on the climate of the area are the shelter against the worst of the moist westerly winds provided by the Pennines and the proximity of the North Sea.

This led to the establishment of an Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority with powers over housing, job creation and public transport, including bus franchising.

[39] For statistical purposes in the 19th century an East Riding of Yorkshire registration county was designated, consisting of the entirety of the Poor Law Unions of Beverley, Bridlington, Driffield, Howden, Hull, Patrington, Pocklington, Sculcoates, Skirlaugh and York.

[52][53] For representation in the Parliament of the United Kingdom the bulk of the East Riding district is divided into three county constituencies: Beverley and Holderness, Bridlington and the Wolds and Goole and Pocklington.

These areas consist of a mix of housing tenures in a real range of properties, from small ex-authority estates, to grand period homes.

The seaside towns of Withernsea and Bridlington face similar challenges with unemployment, low educational attainment, and socioeconomic inequality.

South East Holderness, consisting of small rural communities, deals with limited access to services, inadequate public transportation, and the decline of traditional industries.

Stamford Bridge, Pocklington, Market Weighton, Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, Howden and South Cave all lie to the north and west of the area, between the River Derwent and the scarp slope of the Wolds.

The archdeaconry includes the Yorkshire Wolds and the City of Hull, with a coastline extending from Scarborough and Bridlington in the north to Spurn Point.

Part of the M62 serves to link the Hull area to West Yorkshire and the national motorway network, while the M18 incidentally passes the district border near Goole.

[75] This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of East Riding of Yorkshire at current basic prices with figures in millions of British pounds sterling.

[120] Other newspapers in the area include the Bridlington Free Press, the Goole Times, the Holderness Gazette, and the Driffield & Wolds Weekly.