SCARBOROUGH AS IT WAS
Some of the towns historic relics are self-evident—Richard III house in Sandside, part of a medieval mansion where that king is said to have lodged in 1484; the 15th century house at the corner of Quay Street and Whitehead Hill, recently restored: the Three Mariners inn, a curious ‘smugglers’ haunt of uncertain date: or the timber frame of a 600-year-old house around which the Newcastle Packet public house was rebuilt in 1899—; all these are well-known.
To outward appearances however there is little of the historic in. for example, Globe Street, Cooks Row, or Tat Hill. And yet there are in fact no older streets in Scarborough than these. Over the centuries most of their buildings have beets rebuilt several times, hut the’ street pattern hereabouts has changed little since the days of Henry I. When his grandson, the Plantagenet King Henry II, rode into ‘Escardeburg in 1155 to inspect William le Gross baronial castle this township was already old, as distinct from the ‘New Borough rapidly growing to the west of the protective ditch and wall. Auborough (old Borough) Street marks the line of this defense, which ran steeply southwards from the North (cliff ridge to the coast near Bland’s Cliff, where it turned north along the waterfront to Castle Hill. Within the ancient borough the mails streets of gabled, timber-framed houses followed the relatively level east-west contours—the streets we know today as Longwestgate, St. Sepulchre Street, Princess Street. And Tut Hill.
In the 13th century a moat surrounded the New Borough, breached at the Newborough Gate on the west and at the Auborough Gate to the north. Its main streets, wider than those in the Old Borough. Were Blackfriargate (Queen Street), Dumple (Friargate), and Newborough Street.
Before the fourteenth century the sea came right up to Quay Street, which formed the edge of the harbor. Here from an early date was the Town Hall, where the Bethel Chapel stands. Corporation dinners were regularly held nearby
At the Golden Ball (rebuilt 40 years ago). Also here were the Custom and Post Houses. A later Custom House still stands at No. 9 Sandside, now a cafe.
Encroachment on the harbor led to the development of Sandside as a more recent thoroughfare. The focus of sail and mast makers, raff merchants, anchor smiths and chandlers. The picturesque, if unsavory. Sandside they knew. With its rat-ridden sail lofts and warehouses was swept away in 1902 to make was’ for the Marine Drive approach road.
Several attractive early Georgian houses base survived in Castlegate. Longwestgate and Princess Street. many of them undoubtedly on much earlier foundations. Here lived the prosperous master mariners. Shipbuilders and merchants of the eighteenth century. Paradise House (the Sea Training School) high above the town has a 300-sear history.
Since 1930 much insensitive re-development has taken place in the old fishing village behind Quay Street, around Longwestgate. And in the New Borough around Dumple Street. To compare. For instance. The north and south sides of that part of Longwestgate which lies between St. Mary’s Street and Castlegate is to gain some idea of the profit and the loss.
Of course, even in ruins, the castle, a royal stronghold from the reign of Henry II to the civil Wars, still dominates. Like King Henry. Iron Age man and Roman invader had in turn recognized the strategic advantages of this virtually unassailable headland site. It was not however the Castle Hill itself which attracted Viking raiders to settle in 966. but rather the shelter it gave to the south bay. To an Icelander. Thorgils Skarthi, goes the credit for founding the community below the rock, and for giving the infant town its name Skarthi’s borg. His village. Survived just a hundred years, until it fell victim in 1066 to the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada whose warriors took their stand on the slopes of Castle Hill and tossed burning brands on to the closely packed cluster of wooden dwellings below. All were destroyed. And the villagers massacred or put to flight. Looking down from those same slopes nut to Quay Street, and Castlegate we can imagine the scene.
After William the Conqueror’s campaign of devastation in the North the population drifted back to Scarborough, and a thriving community was soon re-established. It was this community which Henry II first favored with charter privileges and property tax !—stimulating the growth of the borough as a fishing and merchant trading port and market town. He took over the semi-derelict castle, strengthening the curtain wall and building the square Stone keep. The fortress brought to Scarborough a succession of monarchs—. John, Edward 1, Richard III, —not to mention tine privations caused by military sieges.
The parish church of St. Mary probably predates the first castle by a few sears. In 1189 Richard I gave it to the Abbey of Citeaux in France. and a small group of Cistercian monks settled here to administer the church revenue. Their house is said to have stood in the western part of the churchyard; ‘Paradise’ nearby takes its name from their monastic garden. St. Mary’s was badly damaged during the Civil War sieges, and its choir left in ruins.
Familiar and popular figures in the streets of medieval Scarborough were the friars. A house of Black Friars (Dominican) was established here in 1257 just to the south of what is now Friars Way. Queen Street was formerly’ called Blackfriargate. Ten years later the Grey (Franciscan) Friars settled where Friarage School stands today. St. Sepulchre Street takes its name from their Church of the Holy’ Sepulchre. In 1320 the White (Carmelite) Friars built their convent near Blackfriargate, where the Methodists have their Queen Street Chapel. (‘Charitable and practical men. they earned the respect of the burgesses, and it was a loss to Scarborough when in 1539 Henry VIII disbanded all monasteries. The friar’s consents and churches inevitably fell into ruins.
Other medieval churches which have disappeared over the centuries. Leaving only street names to recall them. Are St. Nicholas, on the cliff top near the Grand Hotel. St. Helen near Market Street, and St. Thomas, at the Westborough end of North Street.
Even in the Middle Ages Scarborough had its season. There was no more colorful event than the annual Scarborough Fair which lasted from the Feast of the Assumption (15 August) to St Michael’s Day’ 129 September). It was held from 1253 to 1788. Merchants from Belgium and Germany rubbed shoulders with local tradesmen: there were minstrels, jugglers, ballad-sellers, quack doctors, and fortunetellers. On the first day the burgesses would pas’ their property tax to the Crown— 4d. For each house with a gable towards the street. And 6d. For each house facing the street. In its early days the fair was centered on Palace Hill in Merchant’s Row, but no doubt it would encroach into other streets and of course on to the sands, where the regular fish market was held. Other market sites were High Tollergate (now the east end of Castle Road) where the first may well have been held in 1181: Princess Street was once the Saturday~’ Market, King Street the Apple Market. There was a cattle market in Queen Street. And a pig market in Waterhouse Lane. The name of Cross Street (formerly Carr Gate) reminds us that here, at the junction with Newborough. was the Market Cross. The present Market Hall was opened in 1853 on the site of the butchers’ shambles. And street markets were finally abolished in 1896.
If the center of political activity in Scarborough was the castle, the focus of commerce has always been the harbor. The 10th century Danes would certainly be fishermen, and fishing remained the main occupation of the port until about 1950, although in the 12th and 13th centuries there was considerable merchant trading with Europe, and 500 years later colliers from the Tyne and Wear regularly sheltered here. Here is such a plenty of all sorts of fish that I have hardly seen the like”, wrote Daniel Defoe in 1722. Whalers used the port in the 18th century. In the 19th century sailing yawls from Cornwall, Lowestoft and the Scottish east coast vied with local boats during the herring season. From about 1880 steam trawlers and drifters crowded the harbor to land their catches, and dripping fish carts passing through the town to the railway brought a special atmosphere to fashionable Scarborough.
Today there is a steady traffic in white fish, crab and lobster, and each year from August to October; Scottish herring drifters throng the inner harbor. Throughout the year two ships a week discharge their cargoes of timber and chemicals from Scandinavia. Germany, Poland and Russia. The outer harbor is given over to pleasure craft.
The 1253 charter granted harbor tolls for she renewal of the pier, which in 1732 was rebuilt as the Vincent Pier. The East or Outer Pier followed in 1752, and the West Pier in 1822. There was a lighthouse in 1806, and a lifeboat from 1800, first housed at the foot of St. Nicholas Cliff.
Sailing for pleasure is on record as early as 1697, and strainer trips along the coast were in vogue in 1845. Before World War I regular steamship services linked Scarborough with London and the North East.
Wooden sailing ships were built here for over 200 years. The last of the yards which occupied most of the shore from Castle Hilt to Bland’s Cliff closed in 1863.
Ancient Scarborough began with Skarthi’s longboats; modern Scarborough was probably launched, with rather more gentility, at Mrs. Elizabeth Farrers dining table. This good lady was the wife of John Farrer, local gentleman, several times Corporation Bailiff between 1602 and 1625, and founder of a charity hospital in 1628. And in 1626 she discovered the healing waters which made Scarborough a spa—a natural spring near the cliff, south of the Mill Beck. Finding the taste slightly bitter, not pleasant, and therefore almost certainly beneficial, she prescribed the waters for her health-conscious friends, who spread the word. Summer pilgrimages to the spring became the habit of the leisured few, and as men of medicine argued at length over the properties of the waters an increasingly aristocratic clientele continued to partake. From 1698, when the Corporation installed a cistern, a house for the Governor, and a wooden staith to deter the sea, they had to pay for the privilege but the Spa, surviving a landslide in 1737 and frequent storm damage, retained its popularity with those seeking to cure their apoplexy, epilepsy, scurvy or asthma, purify their blood, or relieve their hypochondric melancholy. Sea bathing, and indeed seawater drinking, both medically approved, gave Scarborough a head start over inland spas.
A thousand assorted dukes and gentry were counted here in 1733, their main diversions being the Long room, the Bookshop and the Coffee House. To accommodate these people of quality Queen Street. Newborough and Long Room Street were rebuilt to metropolitan standards, and in the 1760’s the Cliff lodging houses were erected.
Such was the appeal of the water cure that in 1826 the newly-formed Cliff Bridge Company was encouraged to lease the Spa from the Corporation and erect an elegant iron bridge at a dizzy height above the shore giving access from St. Nicholas Cliff. The grandest stand of any racecourse in the world” Dr. Granville called it in 1839. no doubt after witnessing the annual Scarborough Races held on the south sands.
In the 1830’s, as water drinking declined, a small orchestra began the Spas long musical tradition, which reached its peak with Alick Maclean in the years 1912 to 1935. Each rebuilding allowed improved facilities for music. Promenading, refreshment, and more recently dancing and conferences. Henry Wyatt’s ~Gothic Saloon’ of 1839 was enlarged in 1847 to accommodate 500. Sir Joseph Paxton added a concert hall in 1858, and after the disastrous fire in 1876 Thomas Verity’s Grand Hall, Theatre and Buffet came into use in 1879. The ballroom was added in 1925, the pump room closed in 1939. And in 1957 the Corporation regained possession of the Spa.
Between the reigns of Henry Ill and George IV Scarborough scarcely expanded beyond the Newborough dyke. John Bland’s carriage road (Bland’s Cliff) gave new access to the sands in 1722, as did the Rev. Dr. Falconers New Road (Vernon Road) in 1791, and Huntriss Row began as Harding’s Walk in 1788, but otherwise the town was still more or less medieval in plan. In 1820 sedan chairs stilt plied in the oil-lit streets. Donner's Long Room (now’ the Royal Hotel) was fashionably frequented; Newstead’s had become the Town Hall (now Lloyd’s Bank) in 1800. Horse-drawn coaches entered the town through the medieval Bar en route to the Bell in Bland’s Cliff, the London, George and New huts in Newborough. And the Talbot and Blacksmith’s Arms in Queen Street.
The Cliff Bridge, reaching out from the old borough, heralded a great awakening. The building boom began quietly enough about 1825 with bow-fronted terraces—York Place, Brunswick Terrace, Vernon Place, Falsgrave Walk (the new name for Without the Bar, now Westborough), and then more ambitiously in 1832 with time Crescent and Belvoir Terrace. Christ Church nearby was dedicated in 1828. By 1840 a railway link with York was being talked of, fine terraces were beginning to edge the road to Falsgrave village, amid modest working-class streets were springing up at the Common end of Bull Lane Aberdeen Walk and around North Street.
When the first trains arrived in summer 1845 tall lodging and hoarding houses in North Marine Rutland. and Mulgrave Terraces on the North Cliff were attends awaiting the inrush of pleasure-seekers, whilst on the South Cliff the new Crown Hotel and Esplanade added architectural distinction to the town. Hotels were to the railway what inns had been to coaches, and the Crown 1844) was quickly followed in 1848 by the Queen (North Cliff). the Victoria (1857) opposite the station, the Princess Royal (1858) below Oliver’s Mount, the Prince of Wales (186l) the Alhmoit and the \icxandra 1864. time Cambridge (1866) and in 1867 the Grand. In the same sear the Royal re-opened after enlargement and the Pavilion was built in 1870
Until orchestral music came to the Son in the 1830’s our seaside idler could only turn for entertainment to the Theatre Royal its Tanner (St. Thomas) Street Built in 1767 at the height of Scarborough’s courtly period, perhaps replacing an earlier building it was a tiny bijou playhouse. although alterations increased its capacity over the years. Its long run ended in 1924. There were occasional one-night shows at the Town Hall in St. Nicholas Street now Lloyd’s Bank perhaps an illusionist. a dramatic ventriloquist, or a minstrel troupe and visits from a traveling circus or menagerie but precious little else
John Sharpin saw what was needed and in 1857 built his Assembly Rooms now in silver Grid) in Huntress Row. engaging a rapid succession of exhibitions, lectures, readings (Charles Dickens in 1858), and musical performances In the 1860’s music hall brought earthy fun and sentimental melody to the F’anttteott in North Street, St. Georges HaL in Aberdeen Walk. and mater to Reid s ‘varieties at the Old Globe in Globe Street, Tlse Royal’s mcs[ioI)olv was challenged when William Vsaddington opened his Londenbnrough Theatre adjoining the new Pavilion Hotel in t8h. A rich programme of concerts, variety. drama, opera, and ‘pictures was offered until 1914 when the Londesborough became a cinema. It was taken down in 1959. The Opera House. home of repertory theatre, began in 1876 as Oliver Saronys wooden Circus building It was rebuilt in 1908 as the New Hippodrome.
In 1839 Dr. Granville had estimated Scarborough’s visitors at about 2,000 a year: now a single traIn might hung 1,000 cxeursionists. It was ttot of course for the Spa. the theatres, or the Assembly Rooms that the trippers flocked here. ]hes came for fresh air, good food, and fun. and middle-class Scarborough bravely stirred herself to indulge their fancies, Ramsdale Valley became the People’s Park in 1860: a pleasure pier was completed in the North Bay in 1869:
and in 1871 the Grand Refreshtmnetit Rooms on the south sands opened their doors to the hungry masses. Fun they found its plenty at the splendidly vulgar umsdergrotmnd Aquarium. opened in 1877. 10 hours amusement for bd’ was the proud boast when this ttmhretla’ became the People’s Palace in 1886. Its exotic grottoes, oriental theatre, models of Niagara and New York, pcntsy arcades amid Arabesque decor later found their eotmnterpart in the side-shows, waxworks, ~mnd amusements which turtmed the sheds, warehouses and stables of Foreshore Road and Sand.sicle into Scarborough’s Golden Half-Mile.
Not that the cxcurstonists were denied time cure’ if they’ wanted it; they could always take the Scarborough Salts )sptt water its soluble form), try a course of Dr. Rooke’s famous Oriental Pills and Solar Elixir, or bathe in the warm Sea Water Baths, successor to those exclusive private baths run by local doctors to the early 1800’s. (The Sotmth Bathing tiool opened in 1914, amid the healed pool on the North Side in 1938).
Forertmnner of the Futurist Theatre was Kmralfys Arcadia. a fun palace opened in 1903 together with the Olympia (formerly the Fisheries Exhibition). Wilt Ctttlmn rebuilt the Arcadia as an open air pierrot theatre in 1909. replaced the Sheffield Arms svith the Arcadian Restaurant in 1911. and built the Palladium Cinema ut 1912. This became the Arcadia Theatre in 1921 when the Futurist Cinema was built on the old Arcadia site. The cinema closed in 1958 and the Futurist and Arcadia are now one in a modern theatre complex. Scarborough’s other large cinemas, the Grand 1914), the Aberdeen (1920), the Capitol (1929). and the Odeon 1936 had a humble forebear— the Picturedrome in New-borough, opened by Quinton Gibson its 1908. and bioseope pictures were shown at the Old Town Hall as early as 1897.
Pierrots also attended the birth of the Flnral Halt as an open ate stage mum the Alexandra Gardens in 1908. George Royle’s Fol.de-Rols made the Hall their own for many years and others kept up the concert party tradition until big-name shows took over in 1964. In quite a different vein us the Open Air Theatre, which might be subtitled Merrie England to West Side Story’. Between 1932 and 1968 it staged a succession of operas and musicals before audiences of up to 9,000.
A thriving resort attracts population as well as tourists, and Scarborough’s rose front 8,700 in 1831 to 38,000 in 1901. Between 1850 and 1870 a rash of new streets spread inland from North Marine Road and across the open Common north-west of the old town, and continued westward to reach Prospect Road and Columbus Ravine by 1890. The opening up of Eastborough in 1856.62 brought to the medieval borough its first major alteration in 700 years. Across the Ramsdale Valley Sir Joseph Paxton’s Westbourne Estate was laid out in 1862 whilst the Valley Bridge scheme was being feverishly debated. With the completionl of the bridge in 1865 building proceeded apace on the South Cliff
TIme flood-tide of progress swept away the medieval Newborough Gate. replacing it in 1843 with an ornate Victorian folly (which was itself removed in 1890, and moving the Gaol to Castle Road. Gas light enhanced the streets and horsedrawn cabs foreshadowed the Street trams which were to run from 1904 to 1931. In 1859 the workhouse moved from North Street to Dean Road (now St. Mary’s Hospital). The 1860’s was a great decade for church and chapel building.
Victims of the development were those rural landmarks, the corn mills—the Albion Mill at the corner of Queens Parade and Clarence Road, the Greengate in Clark Street, Newton’s Mill where St. Martin’s Church stands, and the Plantation Mill below the Valley Bridge. (The Common Mill remains, off Victoria Road). With them went many rural names—Westover Road, Westbourne Grove, Londesborough Road, Bar Street, Westwood and North Marine Road were considered more urbane than Folly Lane. Bleach House Lane, Stony Causeway, Coverley’s Garden, Lovers lane and Greengate.
Scarborough’s 2 and a half mile seafront road began its 1874 with preparations for the Foreshore Road between Eastborough and the Cliff Bridge which opened, with the Aquarium, in 1877. At the north end the Duke of Clarence opened the Royal Albert Drive in 1890 and work began on the Marine Drive in 1896. The south side of Sandside was cleared in 1902 and the road re-aligned, and after many a battle with the elemementa the final section round the foot of Castle Hill was completed in 1908.
Time Sitwell children, Edith. Osbert, and Sacheverell, knew well the Edwardian Scarborough which so many pictures in this text illustrate at Woodend in the Crescent they were neighbours of their uncle, the opulent Lord Londesborough, instigator in 1876 of the first annual Scarborough Cricket Festival. In his novel ‘Before the Bombardment’ Osbert wrote of the ‘long settled comfort and confident respectability” which German warships savagely’ shattered on 16 December 1914.
A complacent era, certainly: but for all that an age which co-operated with nature and history to develop that special appeal and individuality which 110w’ attracts well over a million visitors to Scarborough every year.
