Carrying Coal to the Yorkshire Coast - John Rushton
The Northumberland and Durham coal fields have a
long history. They made a huge difference to the
Yorkshire coastal ports, not least by using them as
havens of refuge in storm and war. Early coal
deliveries in the 14th century reached the coast but
the cost of inland transport was too great to move
the "sea-coal" far by road. Scarborough castle managed
a coal fire while Pickering castle burnt peat, turf or
timber .They say that London prohibited the use of sea
coal in 1306 as it tended to corrupt the air.
The ship "Blithe", possibly a Selby vessel,
anchored off Filey in 1321, with eighty chaldrons of
coal. Ten chaldrons were burnt by Philip of Hanbury,
lieutenant to Henry de Percy, keeper of Scarborough
castle in 1336 and another eight in the next year..
Three Middlesbrough men were accused of illegally
marketing twenty four chaldrons of coal in the river
Tees in 1361-2. At that time Middlesbrough was little
more than a hamlet, with a small outlying cell of
Whitby abbey monks.
A coal ship was detained as a very early smuggler
in 1366. This Flanders vessel was taking a cargo of
Tyne coal to Europe when it was wrecked at Filey
brigg. Under neath the coal were two great sacks and
a pocket of wool, our principal export, going out
illegally, and worth ten marks. Flemish coal ships
were very active along the coast in the next fifty
years. The accounts of the monks of Whitby for the
years 1394-1396 show them buying Newcastle coal at
3 shillings and 4 old pence a chaldron. One St Hilda's day, they had some
Scarborough musicians up for their feast.
John Rushton
OTHER ARTICLES
• The port of Scarborough in the late 15th Century
• The Yorkshire smuggler - the smuggling of contraband
• Havens on the North Yorkshire coast. An article on scarboroughs maritime history by John Rushton
• Coastal erosion in the 19th Century around the North Bay and Scarborough Castle area
• Article on the coal trade by John Rushton
• The Borough of Scarborough formed in the 12th Century
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks
• The smuggling along the Yorkshire coast - Cloughton Wyke
• Shipping Ironstone down the coast by John Rushton
• The 200 year history of scarboroughs RNLI
• Fighting the Scots in Scarborough Waters in the early 16th century. John Rushton
• Seabathing in scarborough - an article by John Rushton
• Harwood Brierleys description of Scarborough harbour at the opening of the 20th century
• The early years of the Scarborough Lifeboat
• Scarborough’ ships in the Yorkshire coastal trade of 1638-9.
• Scarborough ships in the baltic - an article by John Rushton
• When the Colliers came to Scarborough
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• A sea shanty about a storm on the Scarborough coast
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