Inquest opens into mystery death of 34-year-old man whose body was found in reclaimed Yorkshire village Sunk Island

Area coroner for Hull and the East Riding Lorraine Harris said James Christian Snow’s remains were found on South Farm Road on February 5 this year, but due to the advanced state of decomposition, a cause of death has not yet been established.

Ms Harris adjourned the inquest at Hull Coroner’s Court for a full hearing at a later date pending the outcome of a police investigation.

The Crown Estate village of Sunk Island on the banks of the Humber Estuary was built on land reclaimed from the sea for farming.

In the 16th century it was still an island cut off from the mainland, but the channel separating it from the shore had silted up by the mid-18th century and the land around it gradually drained.

A fort was built there to defend the Estuary during World War One, but today the population is only around 200 people, many of them farmers or residents of cottages built in the 1850s. Boats berth at Stony Creek. The village is around 15 miles from Hull.