Filey tourism in 1862 - better than Scarborough

The troubles of home-tourists during last year's season were numberless, owing to lack of accommodation; in fact, at one popular sea-side watering-place, the visitors were compelled to find a partial refuge at night in bathing-machines or in the fields. Hotel-keepers turned customers away without a sigh, and railway officials were at their wits' end to start trains with any approach to regularity. Even the more remote coasts were crowded, and London must have been a desert, if we may judge by the lists of visitors published weekly in the several localities, and the increase in the number of the often ill-fated excursion trains. We have a tolerably large experience of the coasts of England, and the recommendations and drawbacks of the various towns and villages which yearly attract the summer and the autumn visitor; but to our mind there is not a pleasanter resort than bright, sunny, quiet, cheerful Filey. You need not dress smartly as at Scarborough, at Brighton, Hastings, or Dover; you are not inconvenienced by incursions of noisy excursionists; and you may saunter along the cliffs or highways without interruption by an idle crowd, gaping and staring, and quizzing. There is a band which plays in the public gardens twice a day; there is a first-class table-d'hote at the chief hotel; and there is a spa, the water of which is said to be tonic after dinner. Mr. Thurton's entertainment is given twice in the season, but there are rarely balls, and no theatre. The sands, however, are magnificent, five miles in extent; the curious Brigg "a natural pier of rock" forms a delightful lounge; the cliffs are accessible and command a superb crescent-like bay reaching to Flamborough Head; and the sea is deprived of any monotony by a constant succession of steamers and sailing-vessels.

The headland called Filey Point was a Roman station; the botanist, the geologist, and the fisherman will here find ample scope for indulging their tastes; and the mere idler, if he feels dull, in half an hour can be transported to the gaiety of Scarborough, or loll luxuriously in a comfortable little carriage drawn by a rough pony, and driven by a red-coated postilion, in jockey-cap and long boots, along the smooth sands.

Well, indeed, does Filey deserve its name, which, according to an enthusiastic local antiquary, it a modern corruption of the ancient Felix Sinus, or "Happy Bay." It is sheltered from twenty-six out of thirty-two points of the compass.

In "Once a Week" by Mackenzie E. C. Walcott in 1862

OTHER ARTICLES
• The Crimlisk fishing family history in Scarborough Filey and Hull
• Filey and its early fishing industry
• Seabathing in scarborough - an article by John Rushton
• Charles Dickens account of Filey and Scarborough graveyards
• Sea bathing was pioneered at Scarborough in the late 17th century.
• Filey fishermen in 1862 - yawls and cobles
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks
• Primitive Methodism amongst the Scarborough Filey and Flamborough fishing communities
• Trawling and overfishing - Filey fishing
• The history of the Scarborough Spa pump rooms
• Fishing farming and tourism in the early Filey - 1805
• The visit of Princess Mary to Scarborough in 1927
• Caught on the Filey Cliffs
• The Borough of Scarborough formed in the 12th Century
• Battleships visit Scarborough - a major attraction. - John Rushton
• A scarborough man emigrates to Australia
• A great storm off Filey Bridge and a famous rescue in 1799
• Haddock Legend, And Herring Fishery in Filey
• An early history of Filey and its fishing community

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