Old and New Filey--The Ravine--Filey Brig--Breaking Waves--
Ragged Cliffs--Prochronic Gravel--Gristhorp Bay--Insulated
Column--Lofty Cliffs--Fossil Plants--Red Cliff--Cayton Bay--Up
to the Road--Bare Prospect--Cromwell Hotel and Oliver's Mount--
Scarborough--The Esplanade--Watering-Place Phenomena--The Cliff
Bridge--The Museum--The Spa--The Old Town--The Harbour--The
Castle Rock--The Ancient Keep--The Prospect--Reminiscences: of
Harold Hardrada; of Pembroke's Siege; of the Papists' Surprise;
of George Fox; of Robin Hood--The One Artilleryman--Scarborough
Newspapers--Cloughton--The Village Inn, and its Guests--Tudds
and Pooads.
Here at Filey you begin to see a special characteristic of these
sea-side resorts;--the contrast between the new and old--the nineteenth
century looking proudly across a narrow debatable ground at the
sixteenth and seventeenth, putting even still earlier periods out of
countenance. Were it not for its churches, the olden time would on
occasions be made to feel ashamed of itself.
A breezy commanding outlook in front; a large handsome church, with low
square tower, in the rear; a few shops trying to reconcile themselves to
the new order of things while supplying the wants of fifteen hundred
inhabitants; more than a few true to the old order, and here and there
behind the dim panes, eggs of sea-birds, and shells, and marine stores,
in the literal sense; and two or three quiet-looking, respectable inns,
open to visitors whom the style of the _Royal Hotel_ intimidates; the
new town on the south, and a wooded ravine on the north; and such is old
Filey.
Into this ravine I descended from the church. Heavy rain had fallen
nearly all night, and the paths were so sticky and slippery, that I
wondered so pretty a spot, so capable with bushes and trees and a little
brook of contributing to recreation, should not be better kept. There is
no lack of material for solid paths in the neighbourhood; but judging
from appearances the ravine gets none of it. The path follows the course
of the brook, and brings you out upon a beach where fishing-boats, and
nets, and lobster-pots, and heaps of ballast, and a smoky fire, and
fishy refuse and a smell of tar, and sturdy men and women, make up
divers pictures for the eye, and odours for the nostrils.
As, on approaching Flamborough, we saw the chalk begin to appear at the
base of the cliff, so here we see a stratum of sandstone slanting up
beneath the clay, rising higher towards the northern horn of the bay,
and thence stretching out for three furlongs into the sea, forming the
remarkable reef known as Filey Brig. Camden describes it as "a thin slip
of land, such as the old English called File; from which the little
village Filey takes its name." We may suppose that the cliff once
projected as far, sheltering an indentation so deep that Ptolemy might
well call it the _well-havened bay_; though on this particular there are
different opinions among the learned. Even now, stripped of its cap of
clay, the reef forms a natural breakwater, of which the effect is best
seen in the quiet of the small vessels at anchor behind it.
I was fortunate in the time, for a strong north wind was blowing, and
the great waves, checked in their career, dashed headlong against the
stony barrier, and broke into little mountains of foam, bursting up here
and there in tall white intermittent jets as from a geyser; here one
solid surge tumbling over another, mingling with rush and roar in a wide
drift of spume; there flinging up gauzy whiffs of spray as if mermaids
in frolic were tossing their veils. So mighty were the shocks at times
as to inspire a feeling of insecurity in one who stood watching the
magnificent spectacle.
You can walk out to the end of the reef, and get good views of
Scarborough, about six miles distant in one direction, and away to
Flamborough on the other. The floor is generally level, interrupted in
places by great steps, channels, and boles; and by huge blocks of many
tons' weight scattered about, testifying mutely to the tremendous power
of the sea.
It is a wild scene, and wilder beyond the point, where the whole beach
is strewn with broken lumps, and ledge succeeds to ledge, now high, now
low, compelling you to many an up-and-down, stooping under a rude
cornice, or scrambling over a slippery ridge. In places the cliff
overhangs threateningly, or, receding, forms an alcove where you may sit
and feast your eye with the wondrous commotion, and your ear with the
thundering chorus of many waters.
The upper stratum of clay is worn by the twofold action of rain and
spray into singularly fantastic forms, and where it has been deeply
excavated, there, kept in by the rim of stone, lies a salt-water pool so
bright and pellucid that the temptation to bathe therein is
irresistible. I thought to get round to Gristhorp Bay, but came
presently to a recess where the breakers rushing half way up the cliff
barred all further progress. To lean against the rocky wall and feel it
throb with the shock within the shower of spray, produced an almost
painful emotion; and it seemed to me that the more tumultuous the sea
the better did it harmonize with a promontory so rugged and grim.
I retraced my steps to a stair that zigzags up the cliff on the inner
side of the point. Near this certain visitors have cut their initials in
the hard rock floor, of such dimensions that you can only imagine a day
must have been spent in the task with mallet and chisel. Vain records!
The sea will wash them out some day. When on the summit I was struck
more than before by the contrast between the rage and uproar on the
outside of the ridge, and the comparative calm inside; nor was it easy
to leave a view to which, apart from all the features of the shore, the
restless sea added touches of the sublime, wherein wrought fascination.
And all the while men, looking like pigmies in the distance, were
groping for crabs along each side of the far-stretching reef.
A little way north of the point a rustic pavilion standing in a naked
garden indicates where the visitor will find a jutting buttress whence
to contemplate the scene below. More exposed on this side, the cliff is
more cut up and broken in outline, jutting and receding in rugged
ledges, and in every hollow rests one of those limpid pools, so calm and
clear that you can see the creeping things moving between the patches of
weed at the bottom. And the beach is thickly strewn with boulders of a
size which perhaps represents the gravel of the "prochronic" era.
The elevation increases as we advance, and by-and-by looking round on
Filey, we see how it lies at the mouth of a broad vale which it requires
no great effort of imagination to believe may have been an estuary at
some very remote period, near to the time
"When the Indian Ocean did the wanton play
Mingling its billows with the Balticke sea,
And the whole earth was water."
And far as you can see inland the prospect is bare, even to the distant
hills and wolds which loom large and mountainous through the hazy
atmosphere.
Now the cliff shows bands of colour--brown, gray, and ochre, and the
lower half capped by a green slope forms a thick projecting plinth to
the perpendicular wall above. Scarborough begins to be visible in
detail, and soon we descend into Gristhorp Bay, where rough walking
awaits us. At its northern extremity stands an insulated columnar mass,
somewhat resembling the Cheesewring, on a rude pedestal shaped by the
waves from the rocky layers. Situate about fifty yards from the point,
it marks the wear of the cliff from which it has been detached, while
the confused waste of rocks left bare by the ebb suggests ages of
destruction prior to the appearance of the stubborn column.
The cliffs are of imposing height, nearly three hundred feet: a
formidable bulwark. It is heavy walking along their base, but as
compensation there are strata within reach in which you may find
exhaustless deposits of fossil plants, giant ferns, and others. And so
the beach continues round Red Cliff into Cayton Bay, where another chaos
of boulders will try your feet and ability to pick your way. To vary the
route, I turned up at Cayton Mill, past the large reservoir from which
Scarborough is supplied with water, along the edge of the undercliff to
the high road, leaving Carnelian Bay unvisited. At the hill-top you come
suddenly upon a wide and striking prospect--a great sweep of hilly
country on one hand, on the other the irregular margin of the cliffs all
the way to the town, and a blue promontory far beyond the castle bluff,
which marks our course for the morrow.
The road is good and the crops look hopeful; but the hedgerows are
scanty and stunted, and not improved by the presence of a few miserable
oaks; nor do the plantations which shelter the farm-houses and stingy
orchards appear able to rejoice though summer be come. In some places,
for want of better, the banks are topped by a hedge of furze. On the
left of the road, long offshoots from the bleak uplands of the interior
terminate with an abrupt slope, presenting the appearance of artificial
mounds. Another rise, and there is Scarborough in full view, crowding
close to the shore of its bay, terminated by the castle rock, the most
striking feature. Bright, showy houses scattered on the south and west
indicate the approaches to the fashionable quarter, and of those
farthest from the sea you will not fail to notice the _Cromwell
Hotel_--a new building in Swiss-like style of architecture, at the foot
of Oliver's Mount. The Mount--so named from a tradition that the
Protector planted his cannon there when besieging the castle--is another
of those truncated offshoots, six hundred feet in height, and the
summit, which is easily accessible and much visited, commands an
interesting prospect. You see the tree-tops in the deep valley which
divides the New Town from the Old, and rearwards, broken ground
sprinkled with wood, imparting some touches of beauty to the western
outskirts.
Then, turning to the right, you come upon a stately esplanade, and not
without a feeling of surprise after a few days' walking by yourself. For
here all is life, gaiety, and fashion. Long rows of handsome houses, of
clean, light-coloured sandstone, with glittering windows and ornamental
balconies, all looking out on the broad, heaving sea. In front, from end
to end, stretches a well-kept road, where seats, fixed at frequent
intervals, afford a pleasurable resting-place; and from this a great
slope descends to the beach, all embowered with trees and shrubs,
through which here and there you get a glimpse of a gravelled path or
the domed roof of a summer-house. And there, two hundred feet below, is
the Spa--a castellated building protected by a sea-wall, within which a
broad road slopes gently to the sands. You see visitors descending
through the grove for their morning draught of the mineral water, or
assisting the effect by a 'constitutional' on the promenade beneath;
while hundreds besides stroll on the sands, where troops of children
under the charge of nursemaids dig holes with little wooden spades. And
here on the esplanade elegant pony barouches, driven by natty little
postilions, are starting every few minutes from the aristocratic looking
hotel to air gay parties of squires and dames around the neighbourhood.
And turning again to the beach, there you see rows of bathing-machines
gay with green and red stripes, standing near the opening of the valley,
and now and then one starts at a slow pace laden with bathers to meet
the rising tide. And beyond these the piers stretch out, and the harbour
is crowded with masts, and two steamers rock at their moorings, waiting
for 'excursionists:' the whole backed by the houses of the Old Town
rising picturesquely one above the other, and crowning the castle
heights.
Nearly an hour passed before I left that agreeable resting-place, whence
you get the best view of Scarborough and its environment. Of all the
strollers I saw none go beyond what appeared to be a conventional limit;
Nature without art was perhaps too fatiguing for them. In the whole of
my walk along the coast, I met but two, and they were young men, who had
ventured a few miles from head-quarters for a real walk on the cliffs.
A bridge, four hundred feet long and seventy-five high, offers a level
crossing for foot passengers from the esplanade to the opposite side of
the deep valley above mentioned, on payment of a toll. It is at once
ornamental and convenient, saving the toil of a steep ascent and
descent, and combining the advantage of an observatory. From the centre
you get a complete view of the bay, one which the eye rests on with
pleasure, though you will hardly agree with a medical author, that it is
a "Bay of Naples." In the other direction, you look up the wooded
valley, and down upon the Museum, a Doric rotunda, built by the members
of the Scarborough Philosophical Society, for the preservation of
geological specimens. The contents are admirably classified, rocks and
fossils in their natural order; amid them rests the skeleton of an
ancient British chief; and near the entrance you may see the clumsy oak
coffin in which it was found, about twenty-five years ago, in a barrow
at Gristhorp.
Descend into the valley, and you will find pleasure in the sight of the
bridge, and miles of water seen through the light and graceful arches.
Then take a walk along the sands, and look up at the leafy slope,
crowned by the esplanade, and you will commend the enterprise which
converted an ugly clay cliff into a hanging wood. And enterprise is not
to stop here: Sir Joseph Paxton, as I heard, has been consulted about
the capabilities of the cliff to the south. Some residents, however,
think that Scarborough is already overdone.
In a small court within the Spa you may see the health-giving waters
flowing from two mouths, known from their position as North Well and
South Well. The stream is constant, and, after all the wants of the
establishment are supplied, runs across the sand to the sea. The water
has a flavour of rusty iron and salt, differing in the two wells,
although they are but a few feet apart; and the drinkers find it
beneficial in cases of chronic debility and indigestion with their
remorseless allies.
The contrast is more marked between New and Old than at Filey. There is,
however, a good, respectable look about the streets of the Old Town, and
signs of solid business, notwithstanding the collections of
knick-knackery and inharmonious plate-glass. From the broad main street
you descend by a narrow crooked street--from old through oldest to the
harbour, where old anchors, old boats, old beams and buttresses dispute
possession with the builders of new boats, who make the place noisy with
their hammering. Here as a Yorkshireman would say, were assembled all
the 'ragabash' of Scarborough, to judge by what they said and did. Boys
and men were fishing from the pier-head under the lighthouse, watched by
grizzly old mariners, who appeared to have nothing better to do than to
sit in the sun; children paddled in the foamy shallows of the heavy
breakers; carts rumbled slowly to and from the coal brigs, followed by
stout fellows carrying baskets of fish; a sight which might have shamed
the dissolute throng into something like industry.
Enclosed by the three piers which form the harbour stands a detached
pile of masonry, seemingly an ancient breakwater--all weather-beaten,
weedy, and grass-grown, with joints widely gaping, looking as if it had
stood there ever since Leland's day--a remarkable object amid the stir
of trade and modern constructions, but quite in harmony with the old
pantile-roofed houses that shut in the port. Among these you note
touches of the picturesque; and your eye singles out the gables as
reminiscences of the style which, more than any other, satisfies its
desire.
But let us go and look down on the scene from the castle rock. The
ascent is steep, yet rich in recompense. St. Mary's church, near the
summit, and the fragments of old walls standing amidst the graves,
remind us of its former dimensions, and of the demolitions it suffered
during the siege. And there rises in massive strength, to a height of
ninety feet, a remnant of the castle keep--an imposing ruin full before
us, as we cross the drawbridge, pass under the barbican, and along the
covered way, to the inner court. But the court is a large, rough
pasture, fenced on the north and east, where the cliff is bare and
perpendicular, and towards the town shut in by a range of old wall,
pierced by a few embrasures, some low buildings, and the remains of an
ancient chapel. There is no picturesque assemblage of ruins; but little
indeed besides the shattered keep, and that appears to best effect from
without. Near the chapel, Our Lady's Well, a spring famous from time
immemorial, bubbles silently up in a darksome vault.
Northwards the view extends along the rugged coast to the Peak, a lofty
point that looks down on Robin Hood's Bay, and to hazy elevations beyond
Whitby. To get a sight of the town you must return to the barbican,
where you can step up on the wall and securely enjoy a bird's-eye view:
from the row of cannon which crown the precipice sheer down to the port
and away to the Spa, all lies outspread before the curious eye.
A great height, as we have already proved, appears to be favourable to
musing, especially when the sun shines bright. And here there is much to
muse about. Harold Hardrada, when on his way to defeat and death at
Stamford Brig, landed here, and climbing the "Scarburg" with his wild
sea-rovers, lit a huge bonfire, and tossed the blazing logs over the
cliff down upon the town beneath. The burg, or fortress, was replaced in
the reign of Stephen by a castle, which, renewed by Henry II., became
one of the most important strongholds of the kingdom. Piers Gavestone
defended it vigorously against the Earl of Pembroke, but was starved
into a surrender, with what result we all know. The Roman Catholics
attempted it during their Pilgrimage of Grace, but were beaten off. In
1554, however, when Queen Mary was trying to accomplish the Pilgrims'
work, a son of Lord Stafford and thirty confederates, all disguised as
rustics, sauntered unsuspected into the outer court, where on a sudden
they surprised the sentries, and immediately admitting a reserve party
carrying concealed arms, they made themselves masters of the place. The
success of this surprise is said to have given rise to the adage
"Scarborough warning; a word and a blow, and the blow first." But after
three days the Earl of Westmoreland regained possession, and Mr.
Stafford underwent the same sharp discipline as befel Edward the
Second's favourite. At length came the struggle between Prerogative and
People, and in the triumph of the right the castle was well-nigh
demolished; and since then, time and tempest have done the rest.
Among the unfortunates who suffered imprisonment here, George Fox, the
aboriginal Quaker, has left us a most pathetic account of his
sufferings. Brought hither from Lancaster Castle, he was put into a
chamber which he likened to purgatory for smoke, into which the rain
beat, and after he had "laid out about fifty shillings" to make it
habitable, "they removed me," he writes in his _Journal_, "into a worse
room, where I had neither chimney nor fireplace. This being to the
sea-side and lying much open, the wind drove in the rain forcibly, so
that the water came over my bed and ran about the room, that I was fain
to skim it up with a platter. And when my clothes were wet, I had no
fire to dry them; so that my body was benumbed with cold, and my fingers
swelled, that one was grown as big as two." For more than a year did the
resolute Peacemaker endure pain and privation, and vindicate his
principles on this tall cliff; and when three years later, in 1669, he
again went preaching in Yorkshire, he revisited Scarborough, and "the
governor hearing I was come," he writes, "sent to invite me to his
house, saying, 'surely I would not be so unkind as not to come and see
him and his wife.' So after the meeting I went up to visit him, and he
received me very courteously and lovingly."
Five hundred years earlier, and, as the ballad tells, the merry outlaw,
Robin Hood, who
"The Yorkshire woods frequented much,"
being a-weary of forest glades and fallow deer, exclaimed,
"The fishermen brave more money have
Than any merchants two or three;
Therefore I will to Scarborough go,
That I a fisherman brave may be."
But though the "widow woman" in whose house "he took up his inn," lent
him a stout boat and willing crew, he caught no fish, and the master
laughed at him for a lubber. However, two or three days later, he
espied a ship of war sailing proudly towards them, and then it was the
master's turn to lament, for the French robbers spared no man. To him
then Robin:
"'Master, tye me to the mast,' saith he,
'That at my mark I may stand fair,
And give me my bent bow in my hand,
And never a Frenchman will I spare.'
"He drew his arrow to the very head,
And drew it with all might and maine,
And straightway, in the twinkling of an eye,
To the Frenchman's heart the arrow's gane.
* * * * *
"Then streight they boarded the French ship
They lyeing all dead in their sight;
They found within that ship of warre
Twelve thousand pound of mony bright."
The castle is national property, and as the bluff affords a good site
for offence and defence, a magazine and barracks for a company of men
have been built. For all garrison, at the time of my visit, there was
but one invalid artilleryman, who employs his leisure in constructing
models of the ruins for sale along with bottles of ginger beer. He will
talk to you about the nice water of Our Lady's Well; the cavern in the
cliff, where the officers once dined; of the cannon balls that Cromwell
sent across from Oliver's Mount; about the last whale caught on the
shore, and about the West Indies, where he lost his health; but he
remembers little or nothing of Piers Gavestone or George Fox, and is not
quite sure if he ever heard that Robin Hood went a-privateering. His
duties, he told me, were not heavy; he did not even lock the gate at
night, because folk came very early in the morning to fetch their cows
from the pasture.
Since then, that is, in the autumn of 1857, the rains occasioned a
landslip, which nearly obliterated the cavern; a whale thirty feet long
was caught floundering in the shallows; and on Seamer Moor, about three
miles distant, ancient gold and silver rings and ornaments, beads and
broken pottery, and implements of bronze and iron and a skeleton, were
found on excavating a chalky knoll.
Of course, a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants must have its
newspapers. The _Scarborough Gazette_ is a curiosity for its long list
of visitors, filling sometimes two pages. A cheap paper--the title of
which I have lost--was a curiosity to me in another way, for I could not
have believed that Yorkshire folk would read anything so stupid as the
wordy columns therein passed off for politics.
The shadows were lengthening towards the east when, after satisfying
myself with another look at the coast to the north, I took the road for
Cloughton, leaving the town by the north esplanade, where
Blenheim-terrace shows the sober style of the first improvements. Many
visitors, however, prefer the view from those plain bay-windows to that
seen from the stately houses to the south.
Cloughton is a small quiet village, with a _Red Lion_ to match, where
you may get good rustic fare--cakes, bacon, and eggs--and a simple
chamber. The landlord, a patriarch of eighty-five, still hale, and
active, who sat warming his knees at the turf fire, opened his budget of
reminiscences concerning Scarborough. The change from what it was to
what it is, was wonderful. He went there at election times. Had once
been to vote at York, years ago, "when there was a hard fight betuxt a
Milton and a Lascelles." Had never been to London, but his niece went up
to the Great Exhibition. While we talked, in came a shabby-looking
fellow with a six days' beard, for a pint of beer. He had been
trout-fishing all day on the moors--one of his means of living. He
stayed but a few minutes, and as he went out the patriarch said, "He's a
roughish one to look at, but he can make powetry." It was too late to
call him back, or I might perhaps have got a specimen.
Then came in the rustics in twos and threes for their evening pint and
pipe, most of them preferring hard porter to the ale, which was really
good. Not one had a complaint to make of hard times: wages were one and
sixpence a day, and meat, and good meat, too--beef and mutton and
pies--as much as they could eat. They didn't want to emigrate; Yorkshire
was quite good enough for them. While talking to them and listening to
their conversation among themselves, my old conviction strengthened that
the rural folk are not the fools they are commonly taken to be. Choose
such words as they are familiar with--such as John Bunyan uses--and you
can make them understand any ordinary subject and take pleasure in it.
And how happy they are when you can suggest an illustration from
something common to their daily life! I would have undertaken to give an
hour's lecture on terrestrial magnetism even, to that company; and not
one should have wished it shorter. And once having broken through their
crust of awkwardness, you find them possessed of a good fund of common
sense, quick to discern between the plausible and what they feel to be
true. Flattering speeches made at hay-homes and harvest-homes are taken
for what they are worth; and the sunburnt throng are everywhere ready to
applaud the sentiment conveyed in a reaper's reply to a complimentary
toast:
"Big bees fly high;
Little bees make the honey:
Poor men do the work;
Rich men get the money."
One of the party, lively enough to have lived when the island was "merry
England," hearing that I intended to walk through Bay Town on the
morrow, said, laughingly, "You'll find nought but _Tudds_ and _Pooads_
down there;" meaning that Todd and Poad were the prevalent names.