| Country: | England |
| Coordinates: | 53.6524°N -0.0844°W |
| Label Position: | left |
| Official Name: | Sunk Island |
| Population: | 228 |
| Population Ref: | (2011 census) |
| Civil Parish: | Sunk Island |
| Unitary England: | East Riding of Yorkshire |
| Region: | Yorkshire and the Humber |
| Lieutenancy England: | East Riding of Yorkshire |
| Constituency Westminster: | Beverley and Holderness |
| Post Town: | HULL |
| Postcode District: | HU12 |
| Postcode Area: | HU |
| Dial Code: | 01964 |
| Os Grid Reference: | TA267190 |
Sunk Island is a Crown Estate village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies NaNmiles south of Ottringham and 1miles to the north of the Humber Estuary. The Greenwich Meridian passes through the east of the parish.[1]
According to the 2011 UK census, Sunk Island parish had a population of 228, an increase on the 2001 UK census figure of 224.
Sunk Island originated as a sand bank in the Humber Estuary; at first it was open sea, then sand accumulated there until visible at low tides, then at all tides. Colonel Anthony Gilby made the outer banks, empoldering it and making it useful for pasturage, under lease/gift from the crown.[2]
By the reign of Charles I of England, it was said to form a 7adj=onNaNadj=on island, NaNmiles from the mainland.[3] From 1663, the land around it was gradually drained, and by the mid-18th century, the channel separating it from the shore had entirely silted up. It was parished in 1831.[3] The island has an area of 11305adj=onNaNadj=on.[4]
There is an account of the island from 1711 by the Reverend Francis Brokesby of Shottesbrooke, which was reproduced in 1799.[5] This account was originally written as a contribution to Leland's Itinerary, vol vi, p96. "The Island of Sunk, in Humber, figured in the map of the East-Riding of Yorkshire, in the last edition of The Brittania, and indeed could not be in those of Mr Camden's setting forth, because not then nor many years after in being. It was spoken of as a novelty when I first went into Yorkshire, forty four years ago. A little after which time it was bestowed on Colonel Anthony Gilby, then Deputy-Governor of Hull, by a grant from King Charles II. It is reported to be at first a great bank of sand, (of which there are still many to be seen in Humber at low water) that at thereat other mud and mattter stopt; and then still more and more by degrees, until it arrived at its present bigness."
The Reverend Brokesby then gives an account from someone who lived on the Island, as follows:
A fort was built at the outbreak of the First World War.[6]
Today, the settlement consists of a church, a few houses and various farms. Cottages were built 1855–7 by Samuel Sanders Teulon.
The parish church of the Holy Trinity, designed by Ewan Christian in the 1870s,[7] is a Grade II listed building.