CCLXVIII – Redcar to Staithes

I HAD what I thought was an excellent plan to return to North Yorkshire on the August Bank Holiday weekend and squeeze more walking into the gap between the summer’s blistering heatwaves and the cold wet weather brought by autumn. The weather, wilful as always, immediately tried to disrupt my plan by developing a forecast for mostly rain right after I’d made all my bookings.  And then, when that failed to dissuade me, it tried another sneaky tack…

Redcar

Redcar East Station

I alighted at Redcar East railway station suitably dressed for the promised all-day rain only to find that there wasn’t any. The skies were clouded, but not threateningly so, and the temperature was uncomfortably warm.  It wasn’t quite the incandescent roasting that the summer had repeatedly inflicted so far, but that it wasn’t was, in part, on account of the humidity – steaming was the pseudo-culinary experience of the day.

At the end of my last walk, I skipped Redcar seafront and made a bee-line for Redcar East station, which was in itself a mistake (stopping at Redcar Central would have made way more sense). So now, I was going to begin by backtracking and seeing the seafront I’d missed out…

St Peter’s Church

With this aim in mind, I retraced my previous steps up Ings Road onto Redcar Lane. On the latter, I continued north past the junction with Thrush Road (along which I had come last time) and crossed over Church Lane Level Crossing.  This level crossing is not particularly noteworthy except that its name seems weird, given that it’s the intersection of the Tees Valley Line and Redcar Lane, not ‘Church Lane.’

Redcar’s parish church since 1867, St Peter’s Church was built in 1829 and originally functioned as a chapel of ease within the then-larger parish of Marske.  It was extended in 1838, having gained sufficient a number of congregants that ‘chapel of squeeze’ may have felt a better descriptor. 1867 saw a promotion in status, when Redcar was split off to form its own parish. A further extension was added in 1926.

As built, it was originally surrounded by a typical churchyard, but this was closed to new burials in 1872 when Redcar Cemetery opened and then emptied in 1966, with most of the graves removed to that cemetery. Now just a handful of gravestones remain, presumably just for the look of things.

St Peter’s Church’s other aesthetic adornment, its clock, was added in 1835. Unusually, it has faces on only two sides of the tower, facing north and west respectively. This is because, at the time, the church was at the southeastern corner of Redcar and no need was seen to display the time to open fields, where only scarecrows might see it.

High Street

The above two clocks neatly bookend a section of Redcar’s High Street that was pedestrianised in 1992, though neither clock dates from that time.  The one on the left, popularly known as the Blue Town Clock but officially the Millennium Clock, stands at the eastern end of the pedestrianised zone and was donated by Redcar Rotary Club in 2001.

That on the right is simply known as the Town Clock, without any differentiating colour, but again has a different official name revealing its purpose: the King Edward VII Memorial Clock.  It was erected in 1910 and was paid for by local subscriptions.

Dobson, Duncan & Richardson

The internet being increasingly a place of repeated lies and AI hallucinations, much of it currently knows nothing about the Blue Town Clock, offering either generic waffle about it being ‘a historic landmark’ or else conflating its history with that of the Town Clock.

With regards to the latter, dozens of sites repeat the same line about it being having been designed by a local man named John Dobson. Which it wasn’t.

The Town Clock was built by John Dobson, he being a building contractor (after which he sued Redcar Urban District Council over the cost, but then settled out of court). It was designed by architect William Duncan and its clock – its key component to most observers – was made by Middlesbrough jeweller and clockmaker Robert Richardson.

Redcar Beacon

I continued westwards another 300 m before turning north up Station Road and onto the Esplanade. This allowed me to emerge onto the seafront that same distance west of Redcar Beacon and thus to approach it heading eastwards, as I should have done at the end of the previous walk.

Redcar Beacon is a tourist attraction erected in 2013 and houses cafés and viewing platforms within its seven floors.  It stands about 24 m in height and was initially dubbed a ‘vertical pier’ in reference to the more traditional seaside pleasure pier that Redcar once used to have.

Redcar Pier

Redcar Pier was completed in 1873 and was opened by local bigwig and widow, Emma Dawson née Carter (1825-1880) of Weston Hall. She was something of a benevolent philanthropist, albeit on a strictly local scale, and we shall hear of her again before leaving Redcar.

There had been plans to build the pier since 1866, but the Redcar Pier Company created to do so wasn’t embarrassed into actual construction until 1873, by which time Coatham Victoria Pier had opened nearby, despite not having even been planned until 1870.

Redcar Pier suffered the usual successive fates of the seaside pier, namely damage by ships (the brig Luna in 1880, paddle steamer SS Cochrane in 1885 and schooner Amarant in 1897), fire (in 1898) and storms (in the 1940s, 1953 and 1978).  In 1981, the by then much-diminished pier was demolished as unsafe.

Its Coatham neighbour faired no better, with two collisions in 1874 (the schooners Griffin and Corrymbus) and another in 1898 (the barque Birger). It never experienced the above-mentioned storms, having been demolished in 1899.

Postcard Panels

As I made my way along the Esplanade, my eye was drawn to a number of wrought iron panels that were still fairly colourful despite being faded and chipped.  Designed to resemble picture postcards, the 23 panels were installed in 1995 and were fashioned by blacksmith Chris Topp (1949-2024).

Each of the panels conceals a letter that, as designed, would spell out a secret phrase if solved in order.  Unfortunately, during their last restoration in 2013, they were removed for repainting and replaced in a jumbled up order, so now they only spell gibberish.

In March this year, Redcar & Cleveland Council announced that they would be restored again, and this time, they’d be put back in the correct order, restoring the puzzle. But, judging by the panel shown above, this latest restoration is still a work in progress.

Redcar Lifeboats

A little further along the Esplanade, I reached another of Redcar’s claims to fame, namely its being home to the world’s oldest purpose-built lifeboat.

The above lifeboat is RNLB Leicester Challenge III, an Atlantic 85 rigid inflatable boat. This class of inshore lifeboat was introduced in 2005 and can bomb along at 35 kts (40 mph), which is pretty nippy for a boat.

Despite being only 8.44 m in length, Leicester Challenge III is actually the larger of two lifeboats at Redcar Lifeboat Station. the other being the even smaller 5 m IB1-class RNLB Eileen May Loach-Thomas, whose name might be longer than her hull. The latter’s top speed is 25 kts (29 mph).

The tractor in the photo above is a Talus MB-4H, manufactured by Clayton Engineering Limited of Knighton in Powys.  Like both the lifeboat classes mentioned, it was designed specifically for the requirements of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), which is big on bespoke equipment.

Zetland

The need for purpose-built lifeboats long precedes the RNLI’s founding in 1824.  If you’re going to put to sea in conditions that are, by definition, already putting at least one other vessel in distress, you’re going to want something hopefully hard to sink.

Redcar first acquired such a vehicle in 1802, built by South Shields boatbuilder Henry Greathead (1757-1818) and purchased by local MP and landowner, Lawrence Dundas (1766-1839).  Dundas succeeded his father as Baron Dundas in 1820, and was elevated to the title of Earl of Zetland in Queen Victoria’s Coronation Honours of 1838. Either then or, more likely, on his death the following year, the lifeboat he had purchased – hitherto just called Lifeboat – was renamed Zetland after him.

The RNLI took over management of Redcar Lifeboat Station in 1858 and continued to operate Zetland until 1864 when, having sustained serious damage, she was slated to be sold for scrap. A local outcry followed, and she was instead donated to the town and preserved for posterity in her retirement.

The main component of Lord Zetland’s arms was the Dundas red lion rampant (i.e., a lion rearing up) upon silver field. This was augmented by a red Scottish double tressure, which had been granted to his uncle, Thomas Dundas of Fingask (c. 1708-1786), by George III in 1769. Lord Zetland differenced his arms from his uncle’s with the addition of a blue bordure (i.e., border).

Zetland Museum

Zetland’s home today is the Zetland Museum, which is itself a repurposed former lifeboat station erected in 1877 to house the independent lifeboat, Emma.  It was funded by the United Order of Free Gardeners and officially opened by Emma Dawson, for whom the lifeboat was named.

The face of the Zetland Museum bears four sandstone decorative panels. These show two coats of arms (well, sort of), representing the Free Gardeners and Emma Dawson respectively, plus two monograms. The latter are ‘ED’ (again, for Emma Dawson) and ‘WH’ for Weston Hall (Emma Dawson’s home).

The Free Gardeners

The Free Gardeners are a fraternal society that was founded in Scotland in the 16th century and, though quite separate from the Freemasons, bears a lot of similarity to them in terms of structure and symbolism.  It became quite active in its native Scotland and spread, to an admittedly much lesser extent, into England and Ireland and then out into the British Empire. Although today almost vanished in its homeland, it survives in Australia.

Evidently, the Free Gardeners had a local lodge and Emma Dawson had close dealings with them. A colour version of their coat of arms is included in her memorial window in All Saints’ Church, Weston.

I. The Free Gardeners had no officially-granted arms but used unofficial arms that they had assumed without authorisation. A big giveaway to this assumed status is their repeated breach of the rule of tincture, which forbids metal-on-metal or colour-on-colour in order to maintain good contrast (so silver on gold, or black on green is a no-no). The arms display a beehive, the Lamb of God, John the Baptist and the Virtue of Hope. Over all is an inescutcheon (small shield) bearing a saltire and the letters ‘P’, ‘N’, ‘A’ & ‘S’ standing for Pishon (a river in Eden) and for Adam, Noah and Solomon (held by the order to be the first three gardeners).  II. The arms as displayed on the Zetland Museum are a defaced version of these already dodgy arms, replacing John the Baptist and Hope with the numerals ‘18’ and ’77,’ respectively to display its year of construction.

Emma Dawson

Emma Dawson was the daughter of Lincoln attorney William Elmsall Carter (1791-1834), who inherited Weston Hall from his uncle, William Vavasour (1769-1833) a year before he himself died. The Vavasours were a prominent Yorkshire-based Catholic family, descended from Sir Mauger le Vavasour, door-keeper to William the Conqueror.

Emma thus inherited Weston Hall and its estate, which she brought to her marriage with Christopher Holdsworth Dawson (1810-1869), whose grandfather, the Rev Joseph Dawson (1740-1813) had done poorly as a Unitarian minister but made an absolute fortune through canny investments in coal mining.

Between her own inheritance and her husband’s estate, Emma was not short of a penny and, in her later years, was only too pleased to spend on local good causes. Well, sort of local. Weston Hall is some 55 miles southwest of Redcar, lying just northwest of the edge of Leeds

Lifelines

More or less opposite the Zetland Museum was this sculpture:

This 2013 sculpture is titled Lifelines and allegedly commemorates the fishing industry of Redcar by representing ‘boats being dragged back to shore.’ Although that only makes sense if the shore is in the sky, which it might be if there’s a wry comment on the death of fishing industry hidden in the work.

Lifelines is one of a pair with Sinterlation, which involves similar boat shapes and heavy chains and which I had narrowly missed seeing by reaching Redcar seafront 200 m to its east. The latter’s name is a play on ‘scintillation’ and ‘sinter,’ a mixture of iron ore, limestone and coke used to feed a blast furnace.

Both works are by sculptor Ian Randall from Leeds.

Birger Anchor

Having been on the seafront entirely eastwards of Sinterlation, I resolved to keep doing that only more so and thus continued on my way. This carried me past a large anchor – salvaged from the 1898 wreck of the Finnish barque Birger that had damaged Coatham Pier. She had been driven before a storm so quickly that the Scarborough lifeboat couldn’t catch her, and was taking on water from a leak when she reached Redcar.

The crash collapsed her fore and mizzen masts, instantly crushing her captain – Karl Oscar Nordling – and first mate to death. The Redcar lifeboats Emma and RNLB Brothers both launched to try to rescue her crew but were unable to find any survivors in the water. In the end, just two of her fifteen crew would make it, having clung to a raft from which a third crewman was swept.

Hauled up from the seabed in 1998 – a century after the disaster – the anchor now stands on the seafront as a monument to mariners lost.

Touchstone

Just beyond the anchor, the Esplanade became Granville Terrace and then, at the end of that, I found this:

The thing above is actually a concrete sculpture called Touchstone, created in 2001 by an artist named Graham Johnson.  Wrapped around it, inscribed into three steel bands, are lines from Reading Redcar, a poem by local poet Bob Beagrie:

‘Between Sunshine Corner an’ The Stray, folk parade along the esplanade, touch wood in Sunday best an’ stroll back to Coatham.

‘A rock pool there’s old Zealand’s reflection salvaging a sailor from the Esk, the Caroline, The Susannah and the Birger.

‘Today, Redcar’s careful as an hour glass no very wasting a grain.’

Shipwrecks

While we’ve already learnt about Birger, there are three additional shipwrecks mentioned there:

Esk was a whaler that ran ashore off Marske-by-the-Sea in 1826, while returning to her home port of Whitby. There were only three survivors out of a crew of 26.

Caroline was a Danish collier from Aalborg, driven ashore at Coatham on Christmas Day in 1836. Her crew of ten escaped in two boats, but a lifeboatman aboard Zetland, William Guy, died while trying to assist them.

And Susannah was another collier, this time from Stockton, grounded on Coatham Sands in 1841. All nine crewmembers were killed.

The Stray

Touchstone stood next to Zetland Park Roundabout, next to which the England Coast Path (ECP) abandoned tarmac and set off across The Stray, a strip of low dunes that separated the Coast Road from the beach.

For now, I stuck with the path through the dunes. The sands of the beach looked invitingly pristine, but also likely to be soft underfoot, which was not ideal in the muggy conditions.  Besides, as an eye towards the horizon ahead revealed, I could expect some tiring terrain of a different kind ahead – the path would have to climb atop those distant cliffs, and it was likely to be hard work getting up there.

Coast Road Car Park

As the path led me onwards, the dunes turned out to be periodically pierced by hollows named on the map as ‘howles.’  The ECP dipped merrily in and out of these, somewhat diminishing the terrain’s quality of flatness, and making me uncomfortably warm.

Redcar’s Coast Road Car Park sported a building that was both public and convenient, which was helpful, and, having divested myself of unnecessary fluids, I decided to input some new ones in the form of a cold drink I’d been lugging about since Station Road.  The can was nestled amid the most insulating things I was carrying in my bag, and so was, if not still properly chilled, at something like ‘cellar temperature.’

I sat on a bench, overlooking the sea, and took what felt like a welcome break, gradually bringing my own temperature down to something more bearable.  At this point, I’d only done about three miles and that should have a been a warning at how hard the day’s progress would prove.

Marske-by-the-Sea

Bydale Howle

Eventually, I felt compelled to get up and continue. The path led me onwards over more dunes until Bydale Howle, which was also the mouth of Long Beck, proved sufficient an obstacle to briefly divert the coast path to the roadside.

Cliff House

I was now approaching the village of Marske-by-the -Sea.  While I could see many of its buildings ahead, by far the most commanding of my attention was the imposing structure of Cliff House. This was built in 1844 as a summer house for Joseph Whitwell Pease (1828-1903), a member of the Quaker industrialist Pease family of Darlington. He would get himself elected to Parliament in 1865 and be created a baronet in 1882.

In 1934, the house was sold to the Holiday Fellowship, an organisation founded in 1913 by the Rev Thomas Arthur Leonard (1864-1948) to provide affordable, healthy outdoor and walking holidays for working people. They kept it until 1974, after which it sat empty and started to deteriorate.  This was arrested in 1981 when, having been restored, it opened as a retirement home and has remained so ever since.

Marske Sands

At Cliff House, the ECP chose to drop down briefly to the beach in order to bypass the house by passing below its cliffs. There I encountered a chap who was evidently bird-watching through his binoculars but who paused to comment obligatorily on the weather.  More specifically, we noted its wild divergence from the forecast, its suitability or otherwise for walking, and the near certainty that I’d get rained on before my day was done.

The rules of English small talk having been duly satisfied, he then pivoted to opining about my best route forward.  The ECP would take to the cliff tops from here, which meant the views would be nice and that I would pass by the churchyard of St Germain’s with its tower surviving from an otherwise demolished church. But I would also need to navigate a field that currently contained a bunch of rather boisterous cattle. Plus, of course, there was the initial ascent.  Or, Binoculars Man observed, I could just stay on the beach.

Saltburn-by-the-Sea

Saltburn Sands

It was as I traipsed across Saltburn Sands that I first had a proper inkling at just how slowly I was going. For one thing, the sands kept turning soft underfoot and finding firmer footing was not always easy. But my main problem was simple overheating. I had dressed for cool, wet weather and what I’d got was humid heat, which was exhausting. I’ve always been the sort of person that barely feels the cold but pretty much wilts at the first hint of heat and this tendency was now in full force.

I was still lying to myself that everything was fine when a pair of teenage girls overtook me with ease and accelerated off into the distance. Given that I generally walk quite fast, and they were clearly just strolling and chatting, this made it very clear that my pace had slowed down to a crawl.

Lower Promenade

Upon actually reaching Saltburn, I was not at all displeased to get off the soft sands and take to the village’s Lower Promenade.  This was initially lined with colourful beach huts, but these soon gave way to various shops and kiosks, one of which furnished me with a delightful stem ginger ice cream.

Saltburn Pier

Jutting out from the Lower Promenade was Saltburn Pier, the brainchild of Middlesbrough engineer John Anderson (1805-1878), late of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR). Having opened the Alexandra Hotel atop Saltburn’s cliffs in 1867, he needed something more to draw potential guests to the village and hit upon a pier as the solution, completing it in 1869.

As a ploy to drum up business, it worked admirably. Within six months of its opening, the pier had entertained 50 k visitors!  Some of those visitors came by boat, as it became a regular stop for steamers between Scarborough and Hartlepool.

Of course, the life of a pier is punctuated by disasters and Saltburn Pier was no exception. It was originally much, much longer – 1250 ft or 381 m as first built – but an 1875 storm reduced that by about a fifth. Another storm in 1924 punched a hole right through it with the cargo ship SS Ovenbeg, heavily laden with china clay. The gap was repaired in 1929 but a succession of storms in the early 1970s further reduced it in length. Plans to demolish it in 1975 were defeated, but it was cut down again to just 208 m.

It was Grade II listed in 2001.

Saltburn Cliff Lift

John Anderson was evidently the sort of man who can’t stop solving problems. He had already built his hotel atop the cliffs and his pier below it, but then realised he needed to link them together, making it easier for guests to get back up to their rooms. His solution was the Saltburn Cliff Hoist – a lift tower powered by filling or emptying a water tank balanced against the passenger car– which opened in 1870.

The Cliff Hoist was popular but its tower was a timber lattice which suffered from exposure to time and the elements. By 1883, it had become unreliable and, following an inspection, was condemned.

Its replacement, the Saltburn Cliff Lift, was not quite so much a lift as its not-so-named predecessor, but rather a short funicular railway.  This was designed by George Croydon Marks (1858-1938) and opened in 1884 – another example of speedy construction in Saltburn!

Skelton Beck

Reaching the end of Lower Promenade, I crossed Skelton Beck by means of a footbridge attached to the side of the 1960s road bridge that carries Saltburn Road. 

The road bridge is not much to look at and probably far less aesthetically pleasing (though much more convenient to traffic) than the 1889 single-lane masonry arch it replaced.  That, in turn, had replaced an old wooden bridge which had been erected at some point between publication of the Ordnance Survey 1st ed map in 1856 (which didn’t show one) and the 2nd ed in 1895.

Disregarding a couple of narrow footbridges, the Saltburn Road bridge is the least visually impressive of two (formerly three) substantial crossings of Skelton Beck in Saltburn Valley.  The other extant structure is Saltburn Viaduct, built by the North Eastern Railway (NER) in 1872 and designed by the NER’s in-house architect, Thomas Elliot Harrison (1808-1888).  The viaduct remains in railway use, carrying what is now the freight-only Boulby Line.

Ha’penny Bridge

The third, and frankly vertiginous, structure was officially named the Saltburn Bridge but more widely known as the Ha’penny Bridge on account of its pedestrian toll (½ d). This was erected in 1869 at the behest of John Thomas Wharton of Skelton Castle (1795-1871). It was constructed by Hopkins Gilkes and Company (1843-1880) – which would later build the ill-fated first Tay Bridge – and designed by company engineer Charles Willman (1832-1894).

A ha’penny was actually just the cheapest of its tolls, but none of them were considered expensive, even in 1869. Impressively, it then kept the exact same prices for over a century until finally forced to reprice by the decimalisation of the pound (½ p being worth more than twice the value of ½ d).  The full list of tolls were:

Every person not in charge of a horse or a vehicle	½ d
Every saddle or led horse, mule or donkey	1 d
Every carriage drawn by one horse	2 d
Every carriage drawn by two horses	3 d
Every carriage drawn by four horses	6 d
Every cart or wagon drawn by one horse	2 d
Every cart or wagon drawn by two horses	3 d
Every cart or wagon drawn by three horses	4 d
Every cycle or perambulator	1 d

Unsuitable for motor traffic and increasingly unsound in its latter years, it was finally demolished in 1974. The Ha’penny Bridge is not completely erased, however. Its toll house survives as a private dwelling – Toll Bridge Cottage – and a section of its railings now graces one of those narrow footbridges that I discounted earlier.

North Bank

Fascinating as the history of Saltburn’s bridges may or may not be, I’d already crossed Skelton Beck and was now finally facing that ascent that had been lurking ahead of me all day.  There was no putting it off now, it was time to ascend North Bank…

At the top of the steps, I totally stopped to take in my journey so far, and not because I was gasping for breath like a thing that can’t deal with warm weather. Or steps. Or especially both.

The Cleveland Way

Cleveland Coast

Fortunately, having attained the top of the cliffs, the coast path was fairly level for now, running between the cliff edge and open fields.  In addition, it had also gained a new identity, so that now it was not only the ECP but also the Cleveland Way.  This is a 109-mile national trail linking Helmsley to Filey Brigg.

In truth, the engraved rock had a point. Only the part between Saltburn and Filey Brigg is coastal; Helmsley is 24 miles inland as the crow flies, and 57 miles from Saltburn via the Cleveland Way’s route. As such, announcing that you’ve got just over halfway and reached the coastal section does make sense.

I set off in good spirits along the cliff path, noticing as I went that while it might be level, that plane was slightly inclined.  The top of the steps had been about 45 m above sea level, but the Cleveland Way was now climbing up to 100 m over the course of a mile.

Hunt Cliff

By the end of that mile, the path was atop Hunt Cliff.  Unlike the very much smaller cliffs at Saltburn, which were clay, these were rockier affairs, nested upon by kittiwakes. Not that they could easily be seen from the path, as that would have involved leaning right over a potentially unstable cliff edge.

That Hunt Cliff is subject to ongoing erosion is neatly demonstrated by there not being any Roman ruins on top of it. Because there used to be. A coastal fortlet and signal station was built there at some time between 367 and 385, comprising a square stone tower, a curtain wall and corner bastions, all surrounded by a ditch.  The tower alone was a substantial structure, with its four walls each 15.2 m in length and 2.3 m thick!  It’s all in the sea now, having completely eroded by 1979.

Fortunately, the fortlet’s ruins were rediscovered in 1862 and excavated by William Hornsby and Richard Stanton in 1911-12 when just its southern third was still there. Their finds are preserved in the Dorman Museum in Middlesbrough.

Trawl Door, Pillar & Circle

Beyond where the Roman fortlet wasn’t, Hunt Cliff curved its way round the flank of the 166 m-high Warsett Hill (though the path itself never topped 115 m).  There, perched high above the rocky shore, I passed three sculptures by Richard Farrington.  Well, I say ‘passed,’ as if I noticed and kept going, but that’s not strictly true.

I didn’t even spot the first two – Trawl Door (so-named because it resembles the door of a fishing trawl net) and Pillar (a vertical post, with four metal ‘charms’ hanging from it) as the former was hidden by brambles, and the latter blocked from sight by a hillock.

I did see the third – officially-named Circle but better known locally as the Charm Bracelet – but it would have been impossible to miss it.

I felt vaguely guilty about taking another chance to rest. Right up until a woman jogged briskly past, at which point the vagueness quite evaporated.

New Milestones

The three artworks were commissioned by Saltburn Marske & New Marske Parish Council as part of a programme dubbed ‘New Milestones.’  Trawl Door, Pillar and a first version of Circle were all installed in 1990.  Unfortunately, the latter appears to have prompted to someone the question ‘can I roll it like a hoop into the sea?’

The answer to that question, turned out be ‘yes, if willing to lug power tools onto Hunt Cliff and take the time to cut it from its base.’  Which someone did in 1996.

Some of the charms were recovered from the shore and reused when a new version was made.  Circle version 2 had a much sturdier ring and a firmer, harder to saw through anchor to hopefully deter anyone from doing that again. So far, it seems to have worked.

* I’m not saying that’s true, you’ll notice. Just that they won’t admit it.

Guibal Fan House

The building in the background of the Circle photo is the long-disused Guibal Fan House.  This was purpose-built from concrete in 1872 to house a massive fan, nine metres in diameter, which helped ventilate the Huntcliff Ironstone Mine.

The mine had opened the previous year and remained operational until 1906, when the ironstone ore was exhausted. With the closure of the mine, the fan house became first disused and then derelict. Its remains are now a scheduled monument.

The mine entrance was actually an adit passing under the railway line and, while the entrance buildings have been lost to coastal erosion, the remains of a loading ramp and engine house can still be seen next to the railway line. A steam engine in the engine house would haul ore carts up the loading ramp so that they could drop their contents into railway wagons from above.

Here Comes the Rain Again

As I made my way along Cattersty Cliff towards Skinningrove Bay, I spared a glance inland not so much for the fan house or distant Brotton, as for the darkly lowering clouds that were gathering on that horizon.  The rain was going to be arriving late, but it looked like it was going to put in the effort to make up for that.

Skinningrove Jetty

As I approached Skinningrove Bay, the cliffs lost height, dropping back down to about 50 m, at which point the coast path started to descend them via more steps.  During this descent, one obvious feature, getting slowly closer, was the severed remnant of Skinningrove Jetty.

The jetty was opened in 1888 for loading pig iron from Skinningrove Steelworks onto ships bound for Grangemouth and fell out of use in the 1970s, when primary steel production ended.

The abandoned jetty was, for a long time, dilapidated and ridden with holes, but a £3 m restoration project was completed in 2018, allowing public access to the structure. Of course, it still has an obvious gap, which the steelworks’ industrial tramway would once have crossed via a bridge.

Skinningrove Steelworks

Skinningrove Steelworks was founded as the Loftus Iron Company in 1874 but that was liquidated in 1877. Its assets were then acquired by a new company, Skinningrove Iron Company, which was owned by Pease & Partners Bank until nationalisation in 1951. The bank had been founded in 1820 by Joseph Pease (1799-1872), father of Joseph Whitwell Pease.

As part of British Steel in the 1970s, its work was rationalised, abandoning primary production for a focus on specialist work.

The works remain operational today, owned since 2016 by Greybull Capital (est. 2010).

Skinningrove

I stepped through the gap in the jetty and found myself gazing upon the village of Skinningrove and its stream, Skinningrove Beck, which just disappears into the shingle backing the beach.

An ice cream van stood in a car park on the western bank of Skinningrove Beck, which proved the perfect chance to grab another cold drink.  Ice Cream Van Man and I eyed the skies warily and commented on the heat and humidity, and how that humidity would imminently change into actual, precipitating wetness.

For me, the rain at least promised to be cooling. For him, it would likely mean the end of what had up until then been surprisingly brisk business.

Right on Cue

As is often the case in these moments, the topic shifted to how far I had walked, and how far I had left to go in the forthcoming rain. I remarked that I was finding it unusually hard going, even on the flat, but that steps were my usual nemesis.  In response, Ice Cream Van Man peered across the valley and frowned.

‘I don’t even know how many steps that is,’ he said, ‘but good luck.’

The Repus

The rain was as light as had been promised at first, merely sprinkling me with tiny droplets as I made my way upstream past an artwork titled The Repus andtowards the bridge over Skinningrove Beck.

Originally, Repus was a coble – a type of flat-bottomed fishing boat particular to the northeast – built in 1963 and used by fisherman Wilbur Cox for the purpose for which she was intended. Following his death, she was retired from the fishing register and allowed to quietly moulder away on the shore at South Gare at the mouth of the Tees.

In 2008, she was retrieved and returned to Skinningrove for repair, with two carved figures added by sculptors Steve Iredale and Richard Baker. As ‘The Repus,’ she became both an ornamental feature and a monument to sailors lost at sea.

The Repus’s condition deteriorated again between then and 2023, so the artwork was restored by Norman Brown, who added a protective fibreglass coat to the carved figures.

Skinningrove Beck

Skinningrove Beck didn’t look particularly impressive, despite – or because of – having been widened in 2005 after flooding twice in 2000.  At the same time as this widening took place near its mouth, flood gates were added to Stone Row Bridge further upstream. The latter were an improvement to village safety, but their closure was also inconvenient, as it cut off use of that bridge. In consequence, as I passed through the village, plans were already in being put into motion to tear out Stone Row Bridge and replace it with an entirely new one during 2027.

Periodic flooding and bridge replacement have long been a feature for Skinningrove, an old lattice footbridge having been swept completely away in 1903.

The Beach Road Bridge by which I crossed was opened in 1932 by Lawrence Dundas, 2nd Marquess of Zetland (1876-1961), great-grandson of the previously-mentioned earl.  The bridge replaced both the footbridge lost in 1903 and a ford on the site where the new bridge was erected.

Hummersea Point

Having crossed the beck, I ascended the long flight of steps and made my way onto Hummersea Point.

Hummersea Bank

Beyond Hummersea Point was Hummersea Bank, the edge of which the path followed for a while before diverting inland onto an unsurfaced road. While still at the cliff edge I became aware of a column of smoke rising from nearby Hummersea Farm. Was it ablaze? Should I call 999?

As my perspective slowly changed with position, I realised that the smoke plume came not from any its buildings but between them and showed every sign of merely being an intentional bonfire. And then, as if in case even that might be too dangerous, the heavens fully opened with abandon.

I was absolutely soaked through within seconds, my allegedly waterproof jacket giving up any pretence of actually having that quality.  Still, it was very cooling and I actually felt much better for it.

Galli Howe

Cooled and refreshed, I marched at a much speedier pace up the access road to Warren Cottage. Today, that’s where this road ends but at one time it would have continued to the now-vanished Gallihowe Farm, which was abandoned after 1939.  The Cleveland Way did continue as a footpath, but it veered around the site of Gallihowe Farm, returning to the ever-climbing cliff edge.

Loftus Alum Quarries

The path climbed steadily though not too steeply and this was sometimes slippery in the rain, but nowhere near as exhausting as it would have been in the morning’s unscheduled heat. Inland, I now had what would have been a sweeping vista had it not been for poor visibility on account of the rain. That was now coming down hard enough that I didn’t dare take my phone out at all to snap even a grey and misty picture.

On my seaward side the cliffs dropped down onto a strangely barren moonscape, the scarred remnants of the Loftus Alum Quarries, where alum (potassium aluminium sulphate) was extracted from the mid-1650s until 1863.  Together with the Boulby Alum Quarries a little further along, this became a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1989.

The shale strata from which alum was extracted were laid down between 199 and 163 million years ago during the Lower and Middle Jurassic, when this coast was a shallow sea floor.  As a result, they are bursting with fossils, including those of ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.

Boulby Bank

Not long after, I found myself standing near the top of Boulby Bank looking down past Boulby towards Staithes in the distance.

It was at this point that I knew for sure that my plan had gone badly astray.  Staithes was a little way beyond the halfway point as planned and yet, because I’d been going at more-or-less half speed before the rain, I was only as close to it now as I should have been to Whitby.

I decided to reevaluate things when I reached Staithes, although I already knew it could only really go one way.

Boulby

Descending the hillside that is Boulby Bank put me in the hamlet of Boulby itself, which takes its name from Old Norse for ‘Bolli’s farm’. Of course, while it may have begun as a farmstead, it expanded in the 17th century to service the Boulby Alum Quarries and associated works, which were founded in 1615 and operational until 1871.

This means that Boulby’s industrial life ended the same year that a railway line was run past the hamlet by the Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway (WRMU).  Ironically, given that line’s remnant is now called the Boulby Line, it didn’t actually have a station at Boulby.

Boulby Line

The WRMU became part of the NER, then the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) and then British Railways, under whose aegis the line was closed in 1958.  It didn’t stay completely dead, however, experiencing a partial resurrection to service Boulby Mine, a potash mine that opened in 1973, partly on the site of a previous 1903-1934 ironstone mine.

The line between Saltburn and Boulby thus remains open for freight traffic only, while that east of Boulby is long gone.

The Boulby Miner

At the eastern end of Boulby, due north of Boulby Mine’s road entrance and pretty much just chilling at the edge of a field was this chap:

Titled The Boulby Miner, this sculpture by Katie Ventress was commissioned by ICL Group – the current owner of Boulby Mine – to celebrate 50 years of mining at the site. 

It depicts a miners’ bait bench and table (‘bait’ being north-eastern dialect for ‘packed lunch’), in which the height differential between bench and table is increased so that a miner can sit comfortably whilst wearing his mining gear. Next to the miner is a communications board, while a cup sits at one corner of the table.

Staithes

Cowbar Lane

Leaving The Boulby Miner behind, the Cleveland Way struck out across flat fields before connecting up with Cowbar Lane. Sort of. A bit.

The original Cowbar Lane – or Colburn Lane until circa 1920 – had leapt off the cliffs and gone for a terminal swim in some places, requiring it to be fenced off and a new footpath diverted around it.  An entirely new Cowbar Lane suitable for motor traffic had also been added alongside in the 1980s.

The cliffs, which consist of clay atop limestone, are eroding at an alarming pace and the part of Cowbar Lane that connects into Staithes is in imminent danger of collapse, severing that road into the village. A plan to divert the road already existed, scheduled to begin in the early 2030s, but Redcar & Cleveland Council now intend to bring the project forward to 2027.

Staithes Beck Bridge

Cowbar Lane led to Cowbar Bank, the name of which was a pretty good indicator that it was about to lose the 40 m or so of elevation it still had, and so it did.  At the bottom of the bank was Staithes Beck Bridge, a footbridge whose current iteration was installed in 1972.

I crossed over the bridge and hence over Staithes Beck and into the village of Staithes.

Staithes was absolutely lovely, even in the pouring rain.

Calling It Quits

As I had promised myself, I paused in Staithes to reconsider my plans.  I had taken about twice as long to reach the village as planned, which was a problem. Not an insurmountable one admittedly, more of a teensy problemette, but one nonetheless.

I had booked my accommodation in Whitby at a place that had a pretty good reputation for food and so had also booked a table for dinner. My chances of making that booking were rapidly receding, and I really didn’t want to miss that meal.

I looked at my map. I looked at the time. I looked at the absolutely massive hill I needed to climb back out of Staithes and I came to the only conclusion that made any sense.  I would truncate my walk at Staithes, catch a bus from there to Whitby and not miss my dinner reservation.  And then, better rested, I’d return first thing in the morning.  That was a plan!

There was a local little old lady already waiting at the bus top and, it being a peculiarly small world, she naturally turned out to have a son who lives over 200 miles away from her but only a mile from me.

Whitby

White Horse & Griffin

The bus soon arrived to whisk me away to Whitby and the White Horse & Griffin, A Grade II listed building built as an inn in 1681 for Sir Hugh Cholmeley (1632-1689) – a ‘fine, worthy and well-disposed gentleman,’ according to the diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1703).

I. The Cholmeley baronets ofWhitby were a junior branch of the Cholmondeley family (pronounced ‘chumley’) and bore the Cholmondeley arms differenced by the addition of an ermine crescent. II. The main line Cholmondeley arms comprised two silver knights’ helmets and a golden garb (i.e., wheatsheaf) upon a red field.

Technical Failure

By catching the bus, rather than desperately racing to Whitby on foot, I had bought myself time to have a shower and get changed into dry clothes before dinner. The food was, as promised, excellent.

Due to not reaching my planned destination on foot, my day had, technically, been something of a failure but I didn’t really mind. Tomorrow, I declared confidently but wrongly, I’d get back on schedule…

---

This time: 14½ miles
Total since Gravesend: 4,849 miles

---