Last Day by the Sea--Boulby--Magnificent Cliffs--Lofthouse and
Zachary Moore--The Snake-killer--The Wyvern--Eh! Packman--
Skinningrave--Smugglers and Privateers--The Bruce's Privileges
--What the old Chronicler says--Story about a Sea-Man--The
Groaning Creek--Huntcliff Nab--Rosebury Topping--Saltburn--
Cormorant Shooters--Cunning Seals--Miles of Sands--Marske--A
memorable Grave--Redcar--The Estuary of Tees--Asylum Harbour--
Recreations for Visitors--William Hutton's Description--
Farewell to the Sea.
It is the morning of our last day by the sea; and a glorious morning it
is, with a bright sun, a blue sky, and a cool, brisk breeze, that
freshens still as the hours glide on to noon. It is one of those days
when merely to breathe, to feel that you are alive, is enjoyment enough;
when movement and change of scene exert a charm that grows into
exhilaration, and weariness, the envious thief, lags behind, and tries
in vain to overtake the willing foot and cheerful heart. In such
circumstances it seems to me that from all around the horizon the
glowing sunlight streams into one's very being laden with the
delight-fullest influences of all the landscapes.
Though the hill be steep and high by which we leave Staithes, there are
gaily painted boats lying on the grass at the top. You might almost
believe them to be placed there as indications that the town, now hidden
from sight, really exists below. Northwards, the cliffs have a promising
look, for they rise to a higher elevation (six hundred and sixty feet)
than any we have yet trodden on this side of Flamborough. Again we pass
wagon-loads of alum and sulphate, and come to the Boulby alum-works,
beyond which a wild heathery tract stretches sharply upwards from the
edge of the cliff, and shuts out the inland prospect. Up here the breeze
is half a gale, and the sea view is magnificent. More than a hundred
vessels of different sizes are in sight, the greater number bowling
along to the southward, with every stitch of canvas spread, and so near
the shore that you can see plainly the man at the wheel, and the
movements of the crew on deck.
By the roadside runs a stream of alum liquor along the wooden trough,
and on rounding the bluff, we discover more alum-works on a broad
undercliff, with troughs, diggings, and refuse heaps, extending farther
than you can see. You may continue along the broken ground below, or
mount to the summit by a rude stair chopped in the face of the cliff.
The higher the better, I thought, and scrambled up. It is a strange
scene that you look down upon: a few lonely cottages, patches of garden,
and a chaos of heaps, some grass-grown, with numerous paths winding
among them. And now the view opens towards the west, great slopes of
fields heaving up as waves one beyond the other, till they blend with
the pale blue hill-range in the distance; and glimpses of Hartlepool and
Tynemouth can be seen in the north.
The Earl of Zetland is the great proprietor hereabouts: the alum-works
are his, and to him belongs the estate at Lofthouse--a village about two
miles inland--once owned by the famous Zachary Moore, whose lavish
hospitality, and eminent qualities of mind and heart, made him the theme
for tongue and pen when Pitt was minister:
"What sober heads hast thou made ache!
How many hast thou kept from nodding!
How many wise ones for thy sake
Have flown to thee and left off plodding!"
and who, having spent a great fortune, discovered the reverse side of
his friends' characters, accepted an ensign's commission, and died at
Gibraltar in the prime of his manhood.
And it was near Lofthouse that Sir John Conyers won his name of
Snake-killer. A sword and coffin, dug up on the site of an old
Benedictine priory, were supposed to have once belonged to the brave
knight who "slew that monstrous and poysonous vermine or wyverne, an
aske or werme which overthrew and devoured many people in fight; for
that the scent of that poison was so strong that no person might abyde
it." A gray stone, standing in a field, still marks the haunt of the
worm and place of battle.
Tradition tells, moreover, of a valiant youth, who killed a serpent and
rescued an earl's daughter from the reptile's cave, and married her; in
token whereof Scaw Wood still bears his name.
As I went on, past Street Houses, diverging hither and thither, a woman
cried, from a small farm-house, "Eh! packman, d'ye carry beuks?" She
wanted a new spelder-beuk[A] for one of her children. We had a brief
talk together. She had never been out of Yorkshire, except once across
the Tees to Stockton, twenty-two miles distant. That was her longest
journey, and the largest town she had ever seen. 'Twas a gay sight; but
she thought the ladies in the streets wore too many danglements. She
couldn't a-bear such things as them, for she was one of the
audfarrand[B] sort, and liked lasty[C] clothes.
[A] Spelling Book.
[B] Old-fashioned.
[C] Lasting.
While talking, she continued her preparations for dinner, and set one of
her children to polish the "reckon-crooks." The "reckon" is the crane in
the kitchen fireplace, to which pots and kettles are suspended by the
"crooks." In old times, when a pot was lifted off, the maid was careful
to stop the swinging of the crook, because, whenever the reckon-crooks
swung the blessed Virgin used to weep.
Skinningrave--a few houses at the mouth of a narrow valley, a brook
running briskly to the sea, a coast-guard station on the green shoulder
of the southern cliff--makes up a pleasing scene as you descend to the
beach. The village gossips can still talk on occasion about the golden
age of smugglers, and a certain parish-clerk of the neighbourhood, who
used to make the church steeple a hiding-place for his contraband goods.
Smuggling hardly pays now on this coast. They can repeat, too, what they
heard in their childhood concerning Paul Jones; how that, as at Whitby,
the folk kept their money and valuables packed up, ready to start for
the interior, watching day and night in great alarm, until at length the
privateers did land, and fell to plundering from house to house. But
when the fugitives returned they found nothing disturbed except the
pantries and larders.
This was one of the places where the Bruce, proudest of the lords of
Cleveland, had "free fisheries, plantage, floatage, lagan, jetsom,
derelict, and other maritime franchises." And an industrious explorer,
who drew up a report on the district for Sir Thomas Chaloner, in that
quaint old style which smacks of true British liberty, gives us a
glimpse of Skinningrave morals in his day. The people, he says, with all
their fish, were not rich; "for the moste parte, what they have they
drinke; and howsoever they reckon with God, yt is a familiar maner to
them to make even with the worlde at night, that pennilesse and
carelesse they maye go lightly to their labour on the morrow morninge."
And, relating a strange story, he tells us that about the year 1535,
certain fishers of the place captured a sea-man, and kept him "many
weekes in an olde house, giving him rawe fish to eate, for all other
fare he refused. Instead of voyce he skreaked, and showed himself
courteous to such as flocked farre and neare to visit him; faire maydes
were wellcomest guests to his harbour, whome he woulde beholde with a
very earnest countenaynce, as if his phlegmaticke breaste had been
touched with a sparke of love. One day when the good demeanour of this
newe gueste had made his hosts secure of his abode with them, he privily
stole out of doores, and ere he could be overtaken recovered the sea,
whereinto he plunged himself; yet as one that woulde not unmannerly
depart without taking of his leave, from the mydle upwardes he raysed
his shoulders often above the waves, and makinge signes of
acknowledgeing his good entertainment to such as beheld him on the
shore, as they interpreted yt. After a pretty while he dived downe, and
appeared no more."
Give me leave, reader, to quote one more passage, in which our narrator
notices the phenomenon now known as the calling of the sea. "The little
stream here," he says, "serveth as a trunke or conduite to convey the
rumor of the sea into the neighbouring fieldes; for when all wyndes are
whiste, and the sea restes unmoved as a standing poole, sometimes there
is such a horrible groaninge heard from that creake at the least six
myles in the mayne lande, that the fishermen dare not put forth, thoughe
thyrste of gaine drive them on, houlding an opinion that the sea, as a
greedy beaste raginge for hunger, desyers to be satisfyed with men's
carcases."
I crossed the beach where noisy rustics were loading carts from the
thick beds of tangle, to the opposite cliff, and found a path to the top
in a romantic hollow behind the point. Again the height increases, and
presently you get a peep at Handale, traceable by its woods; and
Freeburgh Hill, which was long taken for a tumulus, appears beyond.
After much learned assertion in favour of its artificial formation, the
question was settled by opening a sandstone quarry on its side. Still
higher, and we are on Huntcliff Nab, a precipice of three hundred and
sixty feet, backed by broad fields and pastures. Farther, we come to
broken ground, and then to a sudden descent by a zigzag path at the
Saltburn coast-guard station; and here the noble range of cliffs sinks
down to one of the pleasantest valleys of Cleveland--an outlet for
little rivers. Pausing here on the brow we see the end of our coast
travel, Redcar, and the mouth of the Tees five miles distant, and all
between the finest sandy beach washed by the North Sea: level and smooth
as a floor. The cliff behind is a mere bank, as along the shore of
Holderness, and there is a greater breadth of plain country under our
eye than we have seen for some days past.
Among the hills, picturesquely upheaved in the rear of the plain, I
recognized the pointed summit of Rosebury Topping; and with almost as
much pleasure as if it had been the face of a friend, so many
recollections did the sight of the cone awaken of youthful days, and of
circumstances that seemed to have left no impression. And therewith came
back for a while the gladsome bounding emotions that consort with
youth's inexperience.
Some time elapsed before I could make up my mind to quit the turfy seat
on the edge of the cliff, and betake myself to the nether ground. The
path zigzags steeply, and would be dangerous in places were it not
protected by a handrope and posts. At the public-house below the
requisites of a simple dinner can be had, and excellent beer. While I
ate, two men were busy casting bullets, and turning them out to cool in
the middle of the floor. They were going to shoot cormorants along
Huntcliff Nab, where the birds lodge in the clefts and afford good
practice for a rifle.
Concerning the Nab, our ancient friend describes it as "full of craggs
and steepe rocks, wherein meawes, pidgeons, and sea-fowle breade
plentifully; and here the sea castinge up peble-stones maketh the coaste
troublesome to passe." And seals resorted to the rocks about its base,
cunning animals, which set a sentry to watch for the approach of men,
and dived immediately that the alarm was given. But "the poore women
that gather cockles and mussels on the sandes, by often use are in
better credyte with them. Therefore, whosoe intends to kill any of them
must craftely put on the habyte of a woman, to gayne grounde within the
reache of his peece."
The sands at the mouth of the valley are furrowed and channeled by the
streams that here find their outlet; and you will get many a splash in
striding across. The view of the valley backed by hills and woods is a
temptation, for yonder lie fair prospects, and the obscure ruins of
Kilton Castle; but the sea is on the other side, and the sands stretch
away invitingly before us. Their breadth, seen near low water, as when I
saw them, may be guessed at more than half a mile, and from Saltburn to
Redcar, and for four or five miles up the estuary of the Tees they
continue, a gentle slope dry and firm, noisy to a horse's foot, yet
something elastic under the tread of a pedestrian. At one time the
Redcar races were always held on the broad sands, and every day the
visitors to the little town resort to the smooth expanse for their
exercise, whether on foot or on wheels. For my part, I ceased to regret
leaving the crest of the cliffs, and found a novel sense of enjoyment in
walking along the wide-spread shore, where the surface is smooth and
unbroken except here and there a solitary pebble, or a shallow pool, or
a patch left rough by the ripples. And all the while a thin film, paler
than the rest, as if the surface were in motion, is drifting rapidly
with the wind, and producing before your eyes, on the margin of the low
cliff, some of the phenomena of blown sands.
Smugglers liked this bit of the coast, because of the easy access to the
interior; and many a hard fight has here been had between them and the
officers of the law in former times, and not without loss of life. The
lowlands, too, were liable to inundation. Marske, of which the church
has been our landmark nearly all the way from Saltburn, was once a
marsh. If we mount the bank here we shall see the marine hotel, and the
village, and the mansion of Mr. Pease, who is the railway king of these
parts. And there is Marske Hall, dating from the time of Charles the
First, which, associated with the names of Fauconberg and Dundas, has
become historical. In the churchyard you may see the graves of
shipwrecked seamen, and others indicated by a series of family names
that will detain you awhile. Here in April, 1779--that fatal year--was
buried James Cook, the day-labourer, and father of the illustrious
navigator. And truly there seems something appropriate in laying him to
rest within hearing of that element on which his son achieved lasting
renown for himself and his country. Providence was kind to the old man,
and took him away six weeks after that terrible massacre at Owhyhee,
thereby saving his last days from hopeless sorrow.
Numerous are the parties walking, riding, and driving on the sands
within a mile of Redcar; but so far as a wayfarer may judge, liveliness
is not one of their characteristics. Now, the confused line of houses
resolves itself into definite form; and, turning the point, you find the
inner margin of the sand loose and heavy, a short stair to facilitate
access to the terrace above, all wearing a rough makeshift appearance:
the effect, probably, of the drift. There is no harbour; the boats lie
far off in the shallow water, where embarkation is by no means
convenient. Once arrived at the place, it appeared to me singularly
unattractive.
Wide as the estuary looks, its entrance is narrowed by a tongue of sand,
Seaton-Snook, similar to the Spurn, but seven miles long, and under
water, which stretches out from the Durham side; and on the hither side,
off the point where we are standing, you can see the long ridges of lias
which are there thrust out, as if to suggest the use that might be made
of them. Twenty years ago Mr. Richmond drew up a report on what he names
an "Asylum Harbour" at Redcar, showing that at that time forty thousand
vessels passed in a year, and that of the wrecks, from 1821 to 1833,
four hundred and sixty-two would not have happened had the harbour then
existed. "To examine and trace," he remarks, "during a low spring-ebb,
the massive foundations, which seem laid by the cunning hand of Nature
to invite that of man to finish what has been so excellently begun, is a
most interesting labour. In their present position they form the basis
on which it is projected to raise those mounds of stone by whose means,
as breakwaters, a safe and extensive harbour will be created, with
sufficient space and depth of water for a fleet of line-of-battle ships
to be moored with perfect security within their limits, and still leave
ample room for merchant vessels." There is no lack of stone in the
neighbourhood; and seeing what has been accomplished at Portland and
Holyhead, there should be no lack of money for such a purpose.
Cockles and shrimps abound along the shore: hence visitors may find a
little gentle excitement in watching the capture of these multitudinous
creatures, or grow enthusiastic over the return of the salmon-fishers
with their glistening prey. And in fine weather there are frequent
opportunities for steam-boat trips along the coast. But the charm of the
place consists in the broad, flat shore, and, looking back along the way
you came, you will find an apt expression in the lines:
"Next fishy Redcar view Marske's sunny lands,
And sands, beyond Pactolus' golden sands;
Till shelvy Saltburn, clothed with seaweed green,
And giant Huntcliff close the pleasing scene."
William Hutton, at the age of eighty-five, journeyed hither for a summer
holiday, and wrote a narrative of his adventures, from which we may get
an idea of the place as he saw it. "The two streets of Coatham and
Redcar," he says, "are covered with mountains of drift sand, blown by
the north-west winds from the shore, which almost forbid the foot; no
carriage above a wheelbarrow ought to venture. It is a labour to walk.
If a man wants a perspiring dose, he may procure one by travelling
through these two streets, and save his half-crown from the doctor. He
may sport white stockings every day in the year, for they are without
dirt; nor will the pavement offend his corns. The sand-beds are in some
places as high as the eaves of the houses. Some of the inhabitants are
obliged every morning to clear their doorway, which becomes a pit,
unpleasant to the housekeeper and dangerous to the traveller."
I saw no sand-beds up to the eaves, but there were indications enough
that the sand-drift must be a great annoyance. The town is comprised
chiefly in one long, wide street, which looks raw and bleak, even in the
summer. There are a few good shops at the end farthest from the sea; and
if you ask the bookseller to show you the weekly list of visitors, it
will perhaps surprise you to see the number so great. The church was
built in 1829; before that date church-goers had to walk three miles to
Marske.
And now my travel from Humber to Tees is accomplished, and I must say
farewell to the wide rolling main with its infinite horizon--to the
ships coming up from the unseen distance, and sailing away to the unseen
beyond--to the great headlands, haunted by swift-winged birds, which,
when winds are still, behold a double firmament, stars overhead and
stars beneath; and so, not without reluctance, I turn my back on what
the rare old Greek calls
"The countless laughter of the salt-sea waves."