 The town was founded by the Count of Aumale in the mid-thirteenth century, and had more than one hundred houses and a flourishing market by 1299, when it was granted a borough charter.In the 13th century the town was a more important port than Kingston upon Hull, further up the Humber, and was represented in the Model Parliament of 1295, but as the sandbanks shifted the town was swept away.Storms over the winter of 1356–57 completely flooded the town, leading to its abandonment, and it was largely destroyed by the Grote Mandrenke storm of January 1362.