ENGLANDS 1^st & BEST HOLIDAY RESORT

OFFERED TRANQUIL SLEEPY VILLAGES, YORKSHIRE’S EAST COAST IS THE COAST OF HIDEN GEMS

Travelling North along the East Coast from Scarborough there are many small sleepy hamlets to explore within easy driving distance, the first of which are

Ravenscar & Staintondale.

Ravenscar and Staintondale are twin villages located between the historic seaport of Whitby and the Victorian resort of Scarborough on the beautiful Yorkshire Coast of Northern England. With a history dating back to the Roman Empire and before, the villages have links with smugglers and pirates, Crusader Knights and several kings of England including "mad" King George III

Dramatically situated 600ft above sea level Ravenscar dates back to before the Roman’s, who used the village as a signal station. Ravenscar then became a fort until the Danes demolished it & hoisted there own standard, this featured a Raven Motif & the eighteenth century Raven hall now stands on the summit.

Robin Hoods Bay

Park your car at the top of a very steep cliff and walk down a twisting, turning, cobbled street to the ocean. On either side of you a village clings to the cliffside, defying gravity. Robin's Hood Bay has operated as a village under various aliases. Nothing exists in fact to determine where its name really came from. Once known as Bay Town, Robin Hood's Town and Robbyn Huddes Bay-whatever it is called-it is still a charming spot, with every twist and turn of a street bringing into view another picture postcard scene.

Cobbled streets in Robin Hood Bay

Red pantiles decorate the roofs of stone cottages. A stream runs through a ravine in the middle of the village to the sea below. Shops, cafes, pubs and small cottages cling precariously to the sides of the cliff. The Laurel Inn has a bar carved from solid rock.

Viking raiders settled here. Fifty fishermen lived here in 1536, and the catching and drying of fish was a thriving industry-130 fishermen worked here until the end of the 19th century. Tourist trade soon took the place of the fishing trade as the development of railroads brought people to this area. Nobody knows how many smugglers plied their illicit trade at Robin Hood's Bay.

This former smugglers' den owes its reputation to its strategic position sitting below a steep cliff lapped by the sea. It was ideal for such nefarious activities. And its rabbit warren of narrow tumbled streets and alleyways made it ideal for escaping the law.

Fishing boats at the harbour

Legend has it that secret tunnels and passageways once existed between the houses. Perhaps they still do.

At low tide, 1800 feet (550m) of exposed sea floor make for great fossil hunting, tide pool investigation and exploring. At high tide, the sea has been known to force its way up the main village street, which ends in the sea, where the ocean literally laps at your feet. This charming village takes on a different demeanor when fog and storm and high winds abound, and seas pound the cliffsides.

Robin Hood's Bay

The raging storms have taken their toll, claiming many buildings as the limestone cliffs erode. In 1780, 22 cottages fell into the sea. Today a rock seawall helps protect the picturesque village.

The narrow road down into the village was considered unsafe for carriages. It still is-for cars-as residents will attest. Trucks and cars, defying gravity and attempting to enter the village, have demolished walls on more than one occasion. One look at the stepped street with its handrails and sharp angles explains why.

Robin Hood's Bay with its labyrinth of streets and cottages piled on top of one another, clinging like wild goats to the cliffside, paints a vivid picture that stays long in one's memory.

Please note however the road down is very steep & therefore not recommended to the disabled or elderly.

Runswick Bay

A Sheltered Haven Sheltered from the north winds by Lingrow Knowle, the quaint village of Runswick Bay with its white painted cottages and neat gardens looks out on one of the loveliest bays in the north of England.

This picturesque bay, fringed with golden sand, provided safe anchorage for fishing boats for more than 600 years and when the industry began to decline, its unique setting attracted first artists and then holidaymakers.

For years, the inhabitants retained their insularity – the only link with the outside world being the precipitous winding road. Some of the men worked in the alum quarries at Kettleness and later at the Grinkle Ironstone mines but it was not until the coming of the railway that the village began to change. New houses were built at the top of the bank and slowly the villagers moved away. By the 1940s the shops had closed, fishing had declined and Runswick Bay had become a holiday village.

Today the village has only 40 permanent residents so although a popular resort in summer, the winter months offer peace and tranquillity.

The Landslip
The original village of Runswick Bay lay slightly to the north on the other side of Lingrow Beck but in one tragic night in 1664 the village slid into the sea.

Many of the villagers were attending a wake when a latecomer noticed the steps to the house slip away under his feet. Looking out, the alarmed mourners saw the ground slide several feet down the cliff. Escaping from the back of the house, they roused the rest of the village, most of whom ran to safety.

By morning every house had fallen into the sea, except one – the house of the dead man.

No-one knows which house survived – some believe it to be Jubilee Cottage, others think the original house no longer stands. The village was rebuilt but the land has continued to slip, so in 1970 a new sea wall built to prevent further damage. 1962 saw the opening of the new road, leaving the old one as a pleasant winding path from the top car park.

Around Runswick Bay
Although Runswick Bay is today very much a holiday village, if you take time to wander through the narrow passages and climb the steps, you can easily imagine what life used to be like in this once busy fishing village.

Standing in the centre of the Cockpit, with an uninterrupted view of the bay from its window, is the Institute. Opened in 1870, this was, and still is, the centre of village life, providing a meeting place for the fishermen in bad weather, a hall for all kinds of entertainments and a small hospital where, after a shipwreck, the locals provided blankets and hot drinks for the sailors.

Until the local people began to move away, the village had its own bakery and village stores. The bakehouse was a wooden building alongside Ebor House, where the women brought their bread to be baked. Around the corner was the village stores (now The Anchorage).

Although the houses are modernised and many have been considerably changed, a few in this street still outwardly resemble the fishermen’s cottages. Most would have had one main room downstairs which was both kitchen and living room and also the place where mussels and limpets were prepared for baiting the lines. Upstairs there were two bedrooms with a ladder leading to an attic where the boys of the family slept.

The pathway bears to the left in front of the gardens of the Chapel Cottages. Although now a blaze of colour in summer, the fishermen used the miniature gardens throughout the village for growing vegetables.

The Thatched Cottage is now a Grace and Favour residence of the Marquees of Normanby but with its unrivalled view of the bay it was formerly the coastguard’s house.

From here you can look back across the sands to the small green huts hiding in the slopes behind the bay. These early “second homes” were built in the 1920s by professional families from the West Riding who came for their annual holidays.

The tiny Methodist Chapel was built in 1829 by the women of the village. Inside, a poem on the wall commemorates their hard work.

Behind the chapel is one of the two village springs where the women came each day to collect water. It was not until the 1950s that all the houses in the village were connected to the mains water supply. In the garden of Spout House, is an anchor from one of the many ships wrecked in the bay.

A feature of Runswick Bay which has all but disappeared is the essential ‘bink’. Every cottage had a 2’6” high stone called a bink standing outside the front door on which to do the washing and any other outdoor tasks. Unfortunately only a few remain – one can be seen outside Ocean View.

From the top of the village is a spectacular view over the pantiled roofs and across the bay to the alum quarries of Kettleness.

Many of the cottages on the south side of the village have been rebuilt. Sea Cliffe stands on the site of one of the most important buildings in the village – the Paraffin House. The villagers came here regularly to replenish their supplies but it must have been a major feat carrying the paraffin here from the road.

Jubilee Cottage has changed considerably but the bare ground which lay at the side of the house was an important gathering place for the villagers. Here the children waited to throw confetti when a wedding party passed on their way back form the church at Hinderwell and in return, the best man threw pennies to them. At the top of the steps the bride and groom were greeted by an elderly resident who offered a jug of wine to the new couple, to welcome them into the village.

Continue on along the pathway to explore the south side of the village and return to the Cockpit at the Royal Hotel.

The Bountiful Sea
For centuries life in the village revolved around the fishing industry which by the 1840s supported 20 cobles. Fishing was a family concern with the women and children gutting and salting the fish when the catch was landed and preparing the mussels for bait.

In August the fishermen joined the herring fleet, taking their catches to Yarmouth. The herring houses which stood on the site of the car park were used to store dried fish for the village’s own use.

By the 1920s the industry was declining; some fishermen made extra money by taking tourists out in their boats and a few worked at the Grinkle Ironstone mines. After the last war many looked for a future outside Runswick and by 1950 regular fishing had come to an end. Today one full time fisherman operates from Runswick.

Smuggling provided another source of income as the village’s isolation made it easy for fishing boats to land illegal goods. The cargoes were hidden in the caves and woods and then taken according to local legend, the smugglers were forewarned of danger by a large white owl which perched on the inn sign and hooted until the danger had passed.

Shipwrecks off the bay provided a constant supply of coal and wood, for often a salvage company would offload the cargo in an attempt to refloat the ship. On once occasion the cargo of the Carula was washed overboard and the villagers were paid to collect it form the beach. At 1d per pit prop and 9d for a copper rivet it was well worth the effort.

The Lifeboat
At 4 a.m. on 1st July, 1978, the people of Runswick Bay stood on the beach to watch their lifeboat put to sea for the last time. After 112 years’ service to fishermen, sailors and holidaymakers, an era had come to an end.

The first lifeboat, The Sheffield, had come to Runswick in 1866 and was manned by a crew who had to be able to row for miles in stormy sea. The launching of the boat was a feat in itself: the children placed lanterns on the beach to mark the way then the boat was pushed on rollers to the sea edge by anyone available to help.

Perhaps the most famous rescue occurred in 1901. The men had done out to fish in calm weather but a gale blew up. The lifeboat was needed but the crew and most of the launchers were at sea, so in spite of the harsh weather and strength required, the women and old men of the village launched the boat and stood by until the cobles were safely in.

Today the RNLI operate a small inshore rescue craft from Staithes but the people of Runswick have provided their own craft to go to the aid of holidaymakers and the lifeboat station has become a store for fishing gear.

Superstitions
Like most seafaring communities, the people of Runswick Bay were very superstitious and many local legends grew up associated with the fishing industry.

Victorian writers mention children lighting fires on the cliff top during a storm and dancing and singing:

“Souther Wind, souther,
And Blow father home to mother.”

They also maintain the wives of fishermen sacrificing a cat when the fleet returned safely after a severe storm.

Many of the older people of the coastal villages can still recall the omens of disaster that the fishermen respected. If a fisherman saw a woman whilst walking down to his coble in the morning, he would return home and not go fishing that day. Similarly, if someone talked of pigs to a fisherman he knew his catch would be too small for it to be worthwhile him putting to sea.

Perhaps the most famous legend is that connected with the caves, in the southern part of the bay, where the hob lived. Hobs or goblins seem to have haunted the Yorkshire moors and dales as they feature in many local legends. Runswick’s hob was thought to cure whooping cough, so mothers took their ailing children there and called out:

“Hob – hole Hob!
My bairn’s getten’t kink-cough:
Tak’t off! Tak’t off!

Staithes

Staithes is noted for its sheltered harbour, bounded by high cliffs and two long breakwaters. A mile to the north, Boulby Cliff is the highest cliff in England. For a brief period Boulby Cliff was mined for alum, a mineral used to improve the strength and permanency of colour when dying cloth. This mining was relatively short lived as a cheaper method was developed soon after the boom in alum mining. The ruined remnants of the mines can still be seen from the cliff top when walking the Cleveland Way between Staithes and Skinningrove.

Staithes has long been a destination for geologists researching the ancient Jurassic (Lias), often fossiliferous strata in the enormous cliffs surrounding the village. In the early nineties a rare fossil of a seagoing dinosaur was discovered after a rockfall in the cliffs between Staithes and Port Mulgrave to the south. This fossil has been the focus of an ongoing project to remove the ancient bones of the creature. Port Mulgrave remains one of the best places on the northern coast to find fossils of ammonites and many visitors spend hours cracking open the shaly rocks on the shoreline in the hope of finding a perfect specimen.

Besides its human residents, known to other nearby villages as "Ringers", it has a very large population of gulls and other seabirds nesting in the cliffs. Visitors frequently complain of being unable to sleep at night because of the cries of these birds.

The permanent population of the village has dwindled due to more than half of the cottages being owned by "outsiders", mostly from big cities such as Leeds and York and now increasingly further afield. During the winter, when there are fewer visitors, it can seem like a ghost town. This is a particularly nice time to visit if you are able to brave the stormy weather blowing in from the wild North Sea. Though less than half of the cottages in the old village are occupied by Ringers, the traditions of the village have not yet died: many of the local women still wear Staithes bonnets (some can still be bought today in the Gift Shop in Staithes!) for the annual nightgown parade, and the Staithes Fisher Men's Choir is still going strong. There is active local participation in the local RNLI Lifeboat crew, with the Porritt Family providing many of the past and present crew members.

The beauty of the village has always lent itself to art as shown by the village's long history of well acknowledged painters. The village was home to a small group of twenty to thirty artists known as the "Staithes Group" or the "Northern Impressionists". The group contained renowned artists such as Edward E. Anderson, Joseph R. Bagshawe, Thomas Barrett and James W. Booth and was inspired by other impressionists such as Monet, Cezanne and Renoir. Dame Laura Knight became the most famous member of the Staithes Group; she and her husband and fellow painter Harold Knight kept a studio in the village.

In 1745-1746, Staithes's most famous son (born in Marton near Middlesbrough), the young James Cook worked in Staithes as a grocer's apprentice where he first gained his passion for the sea. He later moved to nearby Whitby where he joined the Royal Navy. William Sanderson's shop, where Cook worked, was destroyed by the sea, but parts were recovered and incorporated into "Captain Cook's Cottage". This has been the residency of a local Staithes family for several generations.

At the turn of the 20th century, there were eighty full time fishing boats putting out from Staithes (or Steers as it is known by the locals); a hundred years later there is only one. Still a father and son fishing operation, three generations of the Hanson family currently work the lone full time fishing boat. There is a long tradition of using the coble (a traditional locally made fishing vessel) in Staithes.

Saltburn–by-the-Sea

Saltburn by the Sea has maintained much of its original charm as a Victorian seaside resort including its pier, the colourful Italian Gardens and walks through Riftswood. Saltburn has the oldest water balanced cliff tramway in Britain, linking the town with the pier 120 feet below. You can park at sea level where the old fishing village straddles Skelton Beck. The Ship Inn remains as a focal point, steeped in smuggling folklore. The Cleveland Way passes through along the coastline and follows a steep path up to Huntcliff, the site of a Roman Signal Station.

The resort of Saltburn by the Sea was founded by the Victorian entrepreneur Henry Pease apparently after having seen a vision. The legacy of this vision is the Station complex, Zetland Hotel, Pier, Cliff Lift and Valley Gardens as well as the so called "jewel streets" along the sea front - Ruby, Emerald, Garnet, Pearl, and Diamond. Another mark of the founding family is the "Pease brick" set into many of the homes in Saltburn with the name Pease set into the very bricks of the houses. Members of this family founded the Stockton and Darlington railway and the town of Middlesbrough nearby.

Before 1860 only old Saltburn existed, situated next to The Ship Inn, nestling below the cliffs. It was the discovery and exploitation of iron ore in the mid 1800’s that was to make the most dramatic change in the fortunes of the Saltburn area.
In 1859 Henry Pease, son of the founder of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, was staying with his brother at Marske. One evening he returned late for dinner. He explained that he had walked to Saltburn and that “seated on the hillside he had seen, in a sort of prophetic vision, on the edge of the cliff before him, a town arise and the quiet unfrequented glen turned into a lovely garden.”

George Dickenson of Darlington was employed to lay out a plan of the town. The buildings had to have uniform roof lines, slate roofs, frontages of white firebricks (from the Pease’s own brickworks) and no fences.
Within 20 years the main form of the town had been created including the Station Complex 1862; Valley Garden’s 1861/62; Zetland Hotel 1863 (reputed to be one of the world’s first purpose built railway hotels to have  its own private platform), Wesleyan Chapel 1863, Pier 1869 and Cliff Hoist 1870. With the death of Henry Pease in 1881 the town’s driving force was lost and soon after the Saltburn Improvement Company was disbanded.

Saltburn founded in the 1800’s & predominately used by upmarket holiday making Victorians.

You can still see the cliff lift, formal gardens & pier all surviving from those Victorian days.

Saltburn has a miniature railway, Saltburn valley woodland centre, Tom Leonard mining museum, Saltburn Smugglers heritage centre & the Margrove heritage centre.