YORKSHIRE'S ATLANTIS

Against all the odds: how Yorkshire's "lost Atlantis" could soon be found after 700 years under the waves

- Paul Drury-Bradey

IT'S NOT HARD to see the appeal of searching for a lost city. Could there be treasure? What secrets do these almost-mythical places hold? And what was life really like in these mysterious places?

Answers might soon be found in an unassuming corner of northern England, as scientists and historians believe they are getting closer to finding Yorkshire's "lost Atlantis", the town of Ravenser Odd, swallowed up by the fierce waves of the North Sea in 1362.

Its story is unlike anything else in English history. The sunken town was once rather like a little Venice a wealthy, outwardlooking place. Built on trade on East Yorkshire land, between what is now Hull and Grimsby, historians believe it was one part of England's key trading route at the very mouth of the Humber Estuary.

It was one of England's most international and distinctively cosmopolitan places too, welcoming seafaring traders from Germany, Scandinavia and beyond. An average week might have seen Scandinavians, pirates and merchants from Italy plying their trade. But does it all sound too fanciful to be true?

Reader's Digest spoke to author and historian, Phil Mathison, who has dedicated many years of research to finding out more about this remarkable town.

"Ravenser Odd is truly an amazing and inspiring place," Mathison explains. "Once people learn a little bit about it, they just want to know more and more. It fires up people's imagination like nowhere else. I think most people like a legend, a mystery story, and something that hasn't been solved. Well, here we've got a legend on our own doorstep. And the curious thing is that 99 per cent of people living around Yorkshire haven't even heard about it."

A cosmopolitan and remarkably European place