Hornsea is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The settlement dates to at least the early medieval period. The town was expanded in the Victorian era with the coming of the Hull and Hornsea Railway in 1864. In the First World War the Mere was briefly the site of RNAS Hornsea Mere, a seaplane base. During the Second World War the town and beach was heavily fortified against invasion. The civil parish encompasses Hornsea town; the natural lake, Hornsea Mere; as well as the lost or deserted villages of Hornsea Beck, Northorpe and Southorpe. Structures of note in the parish include the medieval parish church of St Nicholas, Bettison's Folly, Hornsea Mere and the sea front promenade. The economy includes a mix of tourism and small manufacturing. Most notably, Hornsea Pottery was established in Hornsea in 1949 and closed in 2000. Modern Hornsea still functions as a coastal resort, and has large caravan sites to the north and south. The soft soil and low-lying geography result in consistent coastal erosion that threatens some of the infrastructure of the community. This is expected to get worse as climate change causes sea level rise. In some areas, residents have already been forced to take a managed retreat. The name Hornsea likely derives from the Old Norse elements horn ("horn"), nes ("headland, promontory") and sæ ("sea, lake"). Hornsea may have been the site of Cornu Vallis, a place-name derived from Brittonic corno ("horn") The civil parish of Hornsea is located on the Holderness coast approximately north-east of Hull. The parish is bounded by the civil parishes of Atwick to the north, Seaton to the west, Hatfield and Mappleton to the south, and by the North Sea to the east. The civil parish contains the coastal town of Hornsea, and a suburb of "Hornsea Bridge" or "Hornsea Burton" south of the former railway line, as well as Hornsea Mere. Excluding the town and its suburbs there are no other habitations of note in the parish, except some farms.