Ancient Scarborough
Iron Age tools dating back to around 500 BC have been found on the rocky headland called Castle Hill or ‘the Scaur’ where Scarborough Castle now stands, demonstrating Scarborough’s antiquity.
Castle Hill forms a broad, high rocky promontory with a narrow neck. Surrounded by cliffs it juts out into the North Sea, providing a perfectly defended site. There are two long, sweeping sandy bays respectively to its north and south forming Scarborough’s North Bay and South Bay.
The Iron Age settlement on Castle Hill was followed in AD 370 by a Roman signal station. This was a small but substantial late fourth century Roman fort that was one of a number along the Yorkshire coast designed to warn of oncoming raids, each able to communicate with one another by means of flaming beacons.
The signal station at Scarborough consisted of a square tower set within a square courtyard, but it is difficult to separate the Roman remains from those of the later medieval chapels that existed within the castle.
Other Roman fort signal stations have been identified along the Yorkshire coast at Goldsborough and at Huntcliff (near Saltburn) to the north of Whitby and at Ravenscar to the south of Whitby as well as at Filey just along the coast to the south of Scarborough.
Further Roman signal stations likely existed at Spurn Head; Flamborough Head; Whitby itself and north of the Tees along the Durham coast including a possible signal station at Seaton Carew near Hartlepool. There were probably other signal station forts that have long-since been lost to the sea along the much-eroded Durham coast as far as the Roman port of Arbeia at South Shields or possibly at Tynemouth near the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall. Similar defences extended along the Cumberland coast beyond the western end of Hadrian’s Wall.
The Roman signal stations on the east coast were designed to protect the shores from the ravages of Anglo-Saxon and Frankish raiders from southern Jutland and Frisia as well as Picts, Scots and an unidentified group of raiders called the Attacoti.
After AD 410 the Romans vacated Britain and the Anglo-Saxons were free to invade and settle at places like Scarborough. Over four-hundred years later they would be succeeded by yet another wave of raiders and settlers known to history as the Vikings.
Scarborough’s Viking origin
Scarborough’s Viking name is first mentioned in Viking sagas. In the Kormakssaga, Flateyjarbok Scarborough is called Skarthborg and in the Orkneyingasaga it is referred to as Skarthabork.
The ‘borough’ in the name of Scarborough derives from the Viking word ‘Borg’ meaning ‘stronghold’ and Scarborough means Skarthi’s stronghold. The name has nothing to do with the medieval ‘borough’ or town that developed at Scarborough, though the words are related.
According to the Kormaksaga two Viking brothers called Thorgils and Kormak went harrying in Ireland, England and Wales and established a stronghold called Skarthborg on the English east coast. Thorgils was known to his brother by the nickname ‘Hare Lip’, or in the Viking language ‘Skarthi’. It is probable that ‘Hare-Lip’ gave his name to Scarborough but the name may have been reinforced by its association with the word ‘scaur’ meaning rocky cliff or precipice.
Scarborough’s association with the brothers Kormak and Thorgills is, however, a long one. They were in the service of King Harald Grefeld, who was King of Norway from AD 960-965. This dates the Viking foundation of Scarborough to the mid tenth century.
Kormak and Thorgils accompanied the king’s expedition to Bjarmaland or Permia in northern Russia in AD 966. It is known that the expedition to England immediately followed this and that Kormak died in the year AD 967.
This would date the Viking foundation of Scarborough even more precisely to the year AD 966 or AD 967. However, the Vikings were likely not the first to settle at Scarborough.
There may have already been an Anglo-Saxon settlement on the site and as we have noted there was certainly a Roman signal station here. The Viking raids on Scarborough in AD 967 would not be the last. In 1066 in the months before the Battle of Hastings the town was attacked by Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, in what would prove to be an eventful year in British history.
Scarborough Castle
Scarborough Castle stands on a cliff top promontory overlooking the town and was built around 1130 by William Le Gros, the Earl of Albermarle in the reign of King Henry I.
Le Gros defeated the Scots at The Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in 1138. The castle was captured by Henry II who rebuilt the keep between 1158 and 1168 and the castle became a Royal castle.
Further improvements to the castle were carried out by King John, Henry III and Edward I. Around 1312, Scarborough Castle was given to King Edward II’s ‘favourite’, Piers Gaveston. In that year, the unpopular Gaveston was besieged in the castle by the barons led by the Earls of Pembroke and Warwick.
He was captured and taken to Deddington in Oxfordshire where he was subsequently taken by a rival group of barons who beheaded him in Warwickshire. King Edward was himself subsequently seized and murdered by the barons, for his weak leadership and favouritism. The king would die at Barclay Castle in Gloucestershire, in 1327, meeting a particularly unpleasant end.
The capture of Gaveston was not Scarborough Castle’s last siege. In 1536 the castle was held by Sir Ralph Evers in the name of King Henry VIII and withstood the siege of Robert Aske during the Pilgrimage of Grace.
In 1653, during the reign of Queen Mary, the castle was taken by Thomas Stafford who was later captured by the Earl of Westmorland and beheaded on Tower Hill in London.
In the Civil War in 1644, the Scarborough Castle commander was Sir Hugh Cholmeley (see also Whitby) who had switched allegiance from the Parliamentarians to the Royalists. For five months in 1645 he endured a Parliamentarian onslaught until they captured the castle in 1645. Scarborough was an important strategic location because Royalist ships used it as a haven from which they attacked coal ships heading from Sunderland to London or attacked Parliamentarian supply ships heading in the other direction.
During the siege, what is thought to have been the largest cannon in England was established at St Mary’s church by the Parliamentarians to bombard the castle, causing damage to both the castle and the church. The castle keep was all but destroyed and the church suffered lasting damage leaving part of it in ruins as can still be seen today.
After its surrender the castle became a Parliamentarian garrison under Colonel Boynton. However, the garrison subsequently switched sides and came under attack from the Parliamentarians once again in a second siege of 1648. The Parliamentarians regained the castle the following year.
Scarborough was of course no stranger to military attacks in more recent times. On December 16, 1914 during the First World War, German battleships attacked Scarborough, with over 700 shells, killing eighteen people in a raid in which Hartlepool and Whitby were also bombarded.
In World War Two, Scarborough, including its castle, was subjected to some severe shelling by German aircraft. Over 3,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed in these air raids with one of the worst being on 18 March, 1941 when 100 planes attacked the town. Interestingly, Scarborough was the site of a secret wireless listening station that intercepted the communications of German ships. Established in 1912 before the First World War, it played a role in the sinking of the Bismarck in 1941 during the Second World War.
Scarborough town and South Bay
A borough was established at Scarborough in the 1160s and this town was surrounded by a wall. Henry III established a fair at Scarborough by charter on January 22, 1253 and was it was held in the town until 1788. This was a huge annual event held every August and September, lasting 45 days and attracting merchants from across the world. According to a plaque (over in Scarborough’s North Bay) it was said to be the biggest fair in western Europe.
Scarborough Fair is of course remembered in a famous folk song:
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme
Remember me to one who lived there
She once was a true love of mine.
The song, which has roots going back to at least the seventeenth century, was one of a number of variations including a prevalent version called Whittingham Fair named from the village of Whittingham to the west of Alnwick in Northumberland.
The ‘Scarborough Fair’ version of the song was popularised by the American singing duet Simon and Garfunkel in the 1960s. It had been part of the collection of the Salford folk singer-songwriter, Ewan McColl (1915-1989) who had in turn acquired it from another collector, Mark Anderson (1874-1953), a former lead miner of Middleton-in-Teesdale.
The medieval fishing town of Scarborough grew beneath Scarborough Castle, with the old part of the town centred upon streets like Eastborough, Friargate, Tollergate and Longwestgate. Today, Scarborough is still full of old alleyways, steep steps and curious street-names that are a testament to its history, spanning many centuries from medieval to modern times.
The old part of the town is focused upon the area of red-roofed houses that cluster around the old harbour at the north end of the South Bay and on the neck of the castle promontory or ‘Scaur’ peninsula of the town. Much of the modern town centre of Scarborough lies beyond the oldest part of the town, further to the south, where Westborough is the principal shopping street.
The church of St Mary on the neck of the peninsula beneath the castle walls in the old part of the town is a good place to start an exploration of Scarborough town.
Just to the north of the church, running east to west, is Castle Road with the castle gateway at its east end and the street of Tollergate at the west end. Castle Road was historically called High Tollergate while St Mary’s Walk to the south of the church, running parallel to Castle Road, was historically Low Tollergate.
Tollergate itself, with its Georgian houses, descends steeply north-to-south across the neck of Scarborough’s promontory peninsula and after crossing Longwestgate becomes Friargate to the south.
Founded in the twelfth century, St Mary’s church has long-served as Scarborough’s parish church and began life as a monastic church.
Most of the church that we see today is of the twelfth and thirteenth century but the church tower fell during the seventeenth century and was rebuilt in 1669.
There are good views out to sea from here and towards the South Bay beach and Grand Hotel. The ruinous features of the church date back to the Civil War when the church was the site of the huge cannon used to bombard Scarborough Castle in 1645.
One significant attraction of St Mary’s church is the grave of the novelist, Anne Brontë, who was one of the Brontë sisters of Haworth. Suffering from tuberculosis, Anne retired to Scarborough and died in the town on 28th May, 1849. Her first novel Agnes Grey, published in 1847 is partly set in Scarborough.
The grave of Anne Brontë itself is a very modest one and its significance is only revealed by the well-worn grass just in front of the grave, resulting from the numerous visitors who come to pay their respects.
Just to the east of the churchyard, with views of the South Bay beyond, is a gateway to Paradise, once one of the old medieval streets of Scarborough.
A little beyond Paradise to the east is the course of the Scarborough Castle moat at the foot of Castle Hill and now occupying part of Royal Albert Park where a path climbs steeply to the castle.
North of the church and complementing the castle itself are two grand houses of the 1860s. One of these is called the Castle-by-the-Sea in Mulgrave Place and overlooks the North Bay. Now a hotel, this castellated house was built for the painter John Atkinson Grimshaw, who resided here with his family in the late 1870s.
Grimshaw’s patron, was a Scarborough brewer by the name of Thomas Jarvis who resided in the other grand castellated house nearby called ‘The Towers’ in Castle Road.
The Towers was built especially for Jarvis by the architect William Baldwin Stewart, beneath the gateway of the castle, in around 1866.
Just south of Paradise and the churchyard of St Mary are the streets of the old town including Castlegate.
Castlegate heads south in quick descent from the eastern end of Paradise towards the harbour area of the town. It consists principally of Georgian brick houses, several with elegantly painted picturesque doorways.
About half way down, Castlegate is joined on its western side by Longwestgate, another old street, which again has a number of interesting Georgian houses.
As its name suggests Longwestgate is a relatively long street that stretches westward along the neck of the peninsula towards Tollergate and Friargate.
There are several attractive painted Georgian doorways in Longwestgate, although towards the western end of the street, the houses are mostly of a more recent age, including the Merchant Seamens’ Home, which is a 1920s rebuilding of the original home, founded in 1752.
Aubrorough Street and Cross Street are at Longwestgate’s western terminus. These two streets more or less marked the western edge of the ‘Old Borough’ of medieval Scarborough which was a walled town. Later, as Scarborough grew a ‘New Borough’ developed just west of the wall and was also enclosed by a wall that was traditionally built by Richard III. Here, however, we have strayed someway from the Castlegate area where there is still much to explore.
Back along at Longwestgate’s eastern end, the street of Castlegate is joined on the west side by Princess Street, historically called Low Westgate, which is another fine old street. At its south end the descending Castlegate joins East Sandgate and Tuthill at Burr Bank as we head into the harbour area.
East Sandgate descends south past Tuthill and the Scarborough Sea Cadets’ office that occupies the grand former Victorian church of St Thomas, built of red brick in 1858.
At the foot of East Sandgate we reach Sandside where seaside shops and amusements are the dominant feature of this particular section of the South Bay.
Where East Sandgate meets Sandside is a pub called The Newcastle Packet recalling the regular Tyne-bound sailing ships of old. The pub’s facade features mock timber-framing and was largely built in 1898-99 by Frank Tugwell. However, this pub does incorporate a genuine medieval house of about 1500 as well as some significant genuine historic timber-framing hidden away in a private alleyway to the left.
The busy tourist street of Sandside specifically faces out onto the Old Harbour area of Scarborough which is enclosed by the West Pier and the Old Pier. The West Pier was commenced in 1817.
At the end of the Old Pier is the white-painted Scarborough lighthouse which is a picturesque and prominent feature of views along the South Bay. This is actually positioned on an extension of the Old Pier called Vincent’s Pier that was added after 1732 and linked to the Old Pier by a drawbridge.
It is Vincent’s Pier that hosts the white lighthouse of 1800 that was rebuilt after 1914. This particular pier is also home to the ‘Diving Belle’ sculpture by the Sunderland artist Craig Knowles. At the very end of this pier is a thirteen pounder Vickers naval gun that was recovered from the sea and positioned here as a heritage feature.
Just beyond the Old Pier is the East Pier, built from around 1790 to 1812. Along with the Old Pier this pier creates an additional harbour or haven called the New Harbour.
Tucked away to the rear of Sandside and leading east to the Old Pier entrance and Marine Drive is Quay Street, named from its proximity to the harbour. Here we are at the south east corner of Scarborough’s promontory peninsula, the steep ‘Scaur’ that forms the castle rock.
Quay Street is joined on its north side by the intriguingly named Salmon Steps and slightly to its east by Dog and Duck Lane, beneath the Castle.
On its south side, Quay Street is joined by Porritts Lane leading back to Sandside but in Quay Street itself, where the street becomes particularly narrow opposite Dog and Duck Lane, there are a couple of quite beautiful timber-framed buildings.
One of these is The Three Mariners which is one of the earliest public houses in the town. The building is described as a late seventeenth century re-casing of a timber-framed building that is probably of sixteenth century origin. Just to the right of The Three Mariners is another timber framed building of the fifteenth and sixteenth century that was formerly The Lancaster Inn.
Heading back to the busy harbourside street of Sandside and then heading west and south, Sandside becomes the Foreshore Road that overlooks the beach of the South Bay. Here Foreshore Road is joined from the north, near a shop selling rock and novelties, by the streets of Eastborough and West Sandgate. Nearby is a narrow passageway called ‘The Bolts’ described on a plaque as ‘a relic of medieval town life’.
A little further along Eastborough where it meets the cobbled pedestrianised end of West Sandgate, Eastbrough turns left to follow a westward course running parallel to the Foreshore Road. On the bend, where the street of Eastborough makes a turn, we find the Scarborough Joke Shop which is very much in the spirit of the modern seaside attractions of Scarborough.
The Scarborough Joke Shop has been operating since the 1980s but a tongue-in-cheek plaque above the shop recalls what may be a remarkable event of the 16th September, 1906, when a chicken apparently crossed the road and revolutionised the joke industry.
Entering the narrow West Sandgate on foot from opposite the Joke Shop, this little adjoining street is no more than a narrow climbing passageway of a kind typical in old medieval towns. A little further along just before West Sandgate joins Princess Street, to the north, is the Buttercross, a relic of old times.
The buttercross was one of at least five market crosses in the town where various wares were sold at market from medieval times. This particular cross is the only survivor and associated with the trade in butter, though only the shaft and base of the cross survives. A Saturday market was once held at this site, which is called Princess Square, as late as the nineteenth century.
Across Princess Street to the north, West Sandgate becomes St Mary’s Street. This is another climbing street and is home to the neat-looking Leeds Arms pub. Further north, after crossing Longwestgate, St Mary’s Street continues as Church Stairs Street near to which the Methodist, John Wesley once preached. At the north end there are stone stairs leading to Scarborough’s parish church of St Mary.
Westward from Princess Street and Princess Square is St Sepulchre Street which takes us west to Scarborough Market Hall. St Sepulchre Street runs parallel to the street of Eastbrough, just to its south, to which it is linked at the western end by Globe Street and Leading Post Street. Globe Street is named from once being the site of an inn called The Globe but was in earlier times called Fleshergate as it was the street of the butchers.
At the south end of Globe Street at the junction with Eastborough, a narrow adjoining side street called Merchant Row has steps descending to the South Bay. In Merchant Row we find a sculpture by the County Durham artist Ray Lonsdale entitled The Smugglers Apprentice.
The inscription at the sculpture reads: ‘The Smuggler’s Apprentice (Lesson 1) “If someone whispers, you whisper back. If someone shouts, you run. But keep away from the well-worn track, for there waits a man with a gun”.
Continuing along Merchant Row brings us back into Eastborough via Leading Post Street. This street, originally called Leaden Post Street from a post of some kind, continues north across Eastborough to meet Friargate and St Sepulchre Street near the eastern side of Scarborough’s Market Hall.
Friargate was called Dumple Street (seemingly from ‘Dun Pole’) until relatively recent times but its present name recalls a medieval friary, that was one of three in Scarborough. A Greyfriars (Franciscan) friary was established in the town from around 1239 and was situated just north of St Sepulchre Street.
The other friaries in Scarborough were Blackfriars (Domincans) present in the town from 1252 and Whitefriars (Carmelites) present from 1319. Both of these were on the eastern side of Queen Street (then called Blackfriargate) with the Blackfriars friary at the north and the Whitefriars friary to the south.
Just west of St Sepulchre Street and Friargate is the impressive Scarborough Market Hall and Vaults (pictured above). This hall is bordered by Market Way; Leading Post Street; St Helens Square and on its south side by a narrow alley called Market Side. The Market Hall was constructed in 1853 by J. Irvine of Scarborough and replaced the numerous open air markets in the town.
On the corner of Market Street and Queen Street is Boyes store, one of a well-known chain of UK retail stores specialising in the discount market. Boyes is in fact a Scarborough firm, established in the town in 1881 by William Boyes. This Scarborough store, with its prominent clock tower, dates from 1916 and was designed by J.C Petch.
Heading back towards the Market Hall, from Market Street, the street of St Helens Square meets Eastborough just south of the hall. Here at the crossroads Eastborough becomes the street of Newborough to the west, but continuing south across this crossroads we can make a descent to the sea front via the cobbled street called Blands Cliff.
Blands Cliff brings us back to the Foreshore Road and the splendid beach of Scarborough’s South Bay. Here, as we continue south along the sea front, we reach some of the key features associated with Scarborough’s development as a Victorian spa and seaside resort.
Scarborough’s development as a resort began back in 1620 when spa water, notably a ‘chalybeate’ or mineral-rich saline spring was discovered by Mrs Thomasin Farrer near the Scarborough shoreline. It was claimed that the water had beneficial qualities and helped to attract health-seeking visitors. Mrs Farrer, who was the wife of the town’s former bailiff, was perhaps influenced by the economic success of the spa at Harrogate.
Over time the resort blossomed as the gentry flocked to Scarborough to sample the qualities of the water. Bathing machines were introduced in 1735 and Scarborough subsequently became popular for sea-bathing too. In fact Scarborough is arguably the world’s first seaside resort. In the Victorian age, the resort’s development was given a major boost by the arrival of the railways in the 1840s, with the opening of the railway station in 1845.
On the Foreshore Road at the foot of Blands Cliff, the beach of the South Bay is particularly broad and beautiful when the tide is out. Along Foreshore Road looking north along the sea front towards the old town and castle are a multitude of amusements such as gift shops selling brightly coloured balloons; buckets; plastic spades and sun hats. There are amusement arcades; candy rock stores; ice cream sellers; fast food vendors selling hot dogs and burgers as well as the occasional pub.
The scenic backdrop to the north is the harbour with its white lighthouse and beyond is the castle peninsula on its cliff, commanding the bay like its Iron Age predecessor had done for so many centuries. Turning the other way and looking south along the bay we get more of a sense of Scarborough’s Victorian leisure heritage as the Grand Hotel and distant spa begin to dominate the view.
A little further south, as we head towards the Grand Hotel we reach St Nicholas Gardens where winding paths ascend steeply towards King Street and St Nicholas Street. This will take us to the street of Newborough and its western extension called Westborough which is the principal shopping street and effectively Scarborough’s ‘High Street’, however we will continue exploring the sea front.
Towering above St Nicholas Gardens is a red brick building belonging to North Yorkshire Council that was formerly Scarborough Town Hall. Built in 1870, it was originally the home of a local businessman, John Woodall. The Woodall family sold the house to Scarborough Corporation in 1879 and after it was converted and extended it officially opened as Scarborough Town Hall in 1903.
Further along, passing the most southerly of Scarborough’s amusements called ‘the Olympia’, we find the Central Tramway funicular railway on the north side of the Grand Hotel. Also known as the cliff railway this was one of five funiculars that existed in Scarborough. Only three of these now remain and this is one of only two that are still operating in the town.
Two funiculars on the North Bay beyond the castle to the north have been demolished. One of these was the short-lived Queens Parade Cliff Lift that only operated from 1875 and 1878 after encountering numerous problems. The other was the North Bay Cliff lift that operated from 1930 until 1996.
On the South Bay, the Central Tramway itself opened in 1881 while the shorter St Nicholas Cliff Lift on the other side of the Grand Hotel near the Spa Bridge has been closed since 2007. Further south beyond Scarborough Spa is the South Cliff Lift or ‘Spa Lift’ linking Scarborough Spa to the Esplanade above. A Victorian funicular can also be seen at the Yorkshire coastal town of Saltburn-by-the-Sea on the Cleveland coast.
One of the most prominent signs of Scarborough’s status came with the opening of the impressive and prominent Grand Hotel which is still the dominant feature of the resort and a symbol of grandeur and Victorian leisure.
The hotel stands at the edge of The Valley, which is a natural dip in the cliffs that opens out towards the sea. The Valley was landscaped in the 1830s and 1840s before the building of the hotel and became a site for a number of villas as well as the Valley Park which became a focal point for the early developing resort, rather than the sea front.
Scarborough’s Grand Hotel shifted the focus towards the sea and is a building that certainly lives up to its name. It was completed in 1867 by the architect, Cuthbert Brodrick and consists of thirteen storeys. It is built from six million yellow and red bricks. Perhaps symbolically, it included 52 chimneys (for each week of the year) and 365 rooms for each day of the year. A miniature railway once existed in the hotel basement for moving laundry.
The Valley itself to the south of the Grand Hotel is crossed by an elegant iron footbridge called the Spa Bridge which dates from 1827. Features of the Valley itself include Valley Road which follows the valley bottom. It is bordered by greenery with Valley Park on the south side.
Further up, The Valley is crossed by another bridge but this one is a road bridge carrying the A165. Called Valley Bridge, it was built in 1865 and widened in the 1920s. To its north after crossing the bridge, the A165 enters Scarborough’s town centre near the street of Westborough close to Scarborough railway station. It then turns west towards Falsgrave Road to become the A64 that takes us onward to Malton and York or to Pickering via the A170. Southward from Valley Bridge, the A165 heads for Filey, Bridlington and Hull.
Within The Valley between the two bridges on the north side of Valley Road is Scarborough’s Rotunda Museum, which has a spiral staircase inside. It was built as a museum in 1828-29 by R.H. Sharp for William Smith, a Scarborough resident known as ‘the Father of English Geology’. A little to the west but still within The Valley between the bridges, is a street called The Crescent which is home to Woodend Gallery; Scarborough Gallery and a former bath house.
Woodend Gallery was formerly a family home of the Sitwells when it was simply called Woodend and dates from 1840. It later became Scarborough’s Natural History Museum and is now a gallery. Just to its east and also in The Crescent is Scarborough Art Gallery of about 1845 that was formerly a villa called Broxholm. It adjoins the neighbouring Yorkshire Tibetan Buddhist Centre, occupying the former medical bath house, that was previously called Warwick Villa or Londesborough Lodge. This building dates from about 1840.
Crossing southward over Spa Bridge is Scarborough Spa, built by the architects Verity & Hunt in 1880. It is a rather French-looking building with pavilions at either end.
Near the north end of the Spa, there are stone steps from the Foreshore Road that lead down to the old mineral spring just above the beach. The spring water here is not drinkable today, but this is an important feature in the story of Scarborough’s history as a resort.
Somewhat further inland, to the south west, beyond a range of streets of elegant town houses and town terraces we find the open space of Olivers Mount that plays host to Scarborough’s War Memorial. A lake called ‘The Mere’ can be found here as can the nearby ground of Scarborough Football Club.
Returning again to the coastal area of South Bay; south of the Spa, the Cleveland Way footpath takes us past the Spa Cliff Lift; the Spa Cafe and a former outdoor swimming pool that’s now a filled-in circular concrete space. Much of the neighbouring area here, sandwiched between the Cleveland Way on the shoreline and the Esplanade to its west, form the pleasant parkland gardens of the South Cliff area including the Rose Garden and Italian Gardens. Nearby is a pleasant little clock tower situated alongside the Esplanade.
Heading briefly along the coast south of Scarborough we will quickly make mention of some nearby places that we will likely cover in more detail in the future. Here we find the villages of Osgodby, Cayton, Cayton Bay, Gristhorpe, Lebberston and the fishing town of Filey.
Scarborough North Bay
We now return to Scarborough and explore the area called North Bay north of Scarborough Castle. North Bay is of similar sweeping size to the South Bay and is likewise home to a notable beach. The bay and beach extend northward to a headland called Scalby Ness near the Scalby Beck.
From the harbour and South Bay in the old town, Scarborough’s North Bay can be reached in a number of ways. You might head there via one of the streets west of Scarborough’s peninsula such as Tollergate. If you’re feeling fit you might climb across the castle rock from Castlegate or Castle Road near St Mary’s church and follow the winding footpaths up the hill that bring you down to the other side of the peninsula into Royal Albert Park. This park alongside the North Bay was surprisingly only established and named in 2005.
Alternatively, you might leave Sandside near the harbour in South Bay and head along Marine Drive that takes you all the way around the edge of the Scarborough peninsula, following the sea front. This is the longer walking route but has the bonus of numerous plaques and information boards along the sea wall. They highlight aspects of Scarborough’s culture, history and natural history, forming a heritage trail created in 2022.
The plaques also continue along Royal Albert Drive which is the northern extension of Marine Road following the sea wall into the North Bay. Plaques include mentions of the playwright, Alan Ayckbourn (born 1939), who made Scarborough his adopted town and the Scarborough-born actor, Charles Laughton (1899-1962).
Marine Drive, which took about a decade to build was commenced in the 1880s as an ambitious plan to link the North and South Bay. When Marine Drive opened it could originally only be accessed by paying a toll. A little mock medieval building resembling a lighthouse with a conical roof; timber framing; a Gothic archway and Gothic windows is situated near the harbour at the end of Sandside and was a toll house at the entrance to Marine Drive. The pedestrian tolls ceased in 1943 and traffic tolls ended in 1950.
Having walked our way around the castle rock via Marine Drive we arrive in North Bay. It is much more sedate and serene than the South Bay without the amusements but there are still plenty of features of interest. Looking back to the south we can of course see the castle on its rock and the hotel called the Castle-by-the-Sea.
Continuing north, a popular feature along the North Bay for tourists and photographers is a larger than life sculpture by Ray Lonsdale called Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers. Lonsdale’s works can be seen throughout the north. This particular piece depicts a man from South Hetton in County Durham called Fred Gilroy (1921-2008) in reflective mood, sitting on a bench looking out to sea.
During the Second World War, Fred, a colliery brick layer served in the Royal Artillery and as a Regimental Police Officer. Sadly, on his 25th birthday he was present at the recently liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Germany. He was deeply affected by this experience and the emotions and memories would return to him on each of his successive birthdays.
Ray Lonsdale’s sculpture, just like his Tommy on the Durham coast at Seaham was only intended to be on temporary display in Scarborough but is now a permanent feature. Lonsdale is a former steel fabricator based in South Hetton.
A little further inland from the sculpture is the street of Trafalgar Square and the nearby Scarborough Cricket Club ground. One of the information plaques on the sea wall at Scarborough notes the importance of cricket in the town. The famed batsman and bowler, Bristol-born W.G Grace (1848-1915) was amongst the many cricket legends to play at Scarborough.
A little further north along the bay as Royal Albert Drive turns west towards Peasholm Park there is another interesting piece of public art. The Bathing Belles sculptures were created by Sunderland artist Craig Knowles and recall Scarborough’s connections with bathing.
This particular sculpture depicts a female Victorian bather while a complementary bathing belle by Knowles can also be found near the lighthouse in the South Bay and depicts a female bather of the modern age about to take a dive into the sea.
Peasholm Park lies close to the North Bay and was built in 1912. It incorporates a natural dell called Peasholm Glen and the park itself occupies the site of a medieval manor called Northstead. The park lake was created from the landscaping of the Peasholm Beck
Slightly north of the park is the North Bay Railway, described as “Britain’s biggest miniature railway”. It has been operating and entertaining visitors since 1931. Just to its north is Scarborough’s Open Air Theatre which opened in 1932 when its stage was set within an island surrounded by 7,000 seats. The theatre was reopened as a music venue by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010.
Looking north along the North Bay are views of Scalby Ness and the Scarborough Sea Life Centre at the north end of the bay. Scalby is a name of Viking origin and means Skalli’s Farm or village, Skalli being an Old Norse personal name.
Close by is the Scalby Beck which enters the sea here and further upstream this beck is called the ‘Sea Cut’ from a man-made canal that links it to the upper reaches of the River Derwent in the North Yorkshire Moors. The cut was built between 1799 and 1804 to reduce flooding and improve drainage. The Sealife Centre is a visitor aquarium established in 1991.
North of Scalby Ness, the Cleveland Way long-distance footpath follows the coastal cliffs for some miles towards Ravenscar, Robin Hood’s Bay and Whitby without any coastal villages present along this particular coastal stretch.
The village of Scalby itself, along the Scalby Beck to the west, about a mile from the coast, has almost been absorbed by Scarborough as a suburb. It is home to a medieval church dedicated to St Laurence that dates to the twelfth century with a later tower of 1683.
Along the A171 Scalby Road to the north of Scalby is the village of Burniston that should not be confused with Burneston near Bedale. It is a little under a mile from the coast and has an Anglo-Saxon name that like that of Burneston derives from ‘Bryning’s Farm’. The village pub in Rock Lane is called The Jolly Sailors.
Cloughton, also on the A171, just north of Burniston is slightly nearer the coast. Its name refers to its situation in a valley (a clough) formed by the Cloughton Beck and means ‘valley farm’.
Cloughton’s local pub is the Blacksmiths Arms. The village church, dedicated to St Mary is of the nineteenth century. From Cloughton we can continue along the A171 route across the moors to Whitby or perhaps follow the coastal walkway of the Cleveland Way to Ravenscar and Robin Hood’s Bay.
Explore Yorkshire
Select an area on the interactive history map above
Explore North East England
Select an area on the interactive history map above