Whalebone arches

A memorial to the great whaling voyages of the18th and 19th centuries out of Whitby and Hull is being forgotten .as these “monuments” disappear. Whalebones were placed over farm gateways in several parts of Yorkshire . Many have gone, a few remembered only in fading photographs. It would be of interest if readers know of more examples. and of surviving illustrations.

Several were recorded by Jan Crowther in the East Riding at Thorngumbald , Upton house, Beeford, Howden, Yokefleet , Dalton Holme rectory and at Whalebone farm, Hollym. The scatter of whalebone arches In the North Riding suggests that mariners or investors in the whaling industry were drawn from far inland. They were recorded in the eighties at Aislaby, Hutton le Hole, Irton , Sleights , Snainton, Pickering and Thornton Dale. Most served as field gateways.

The Strickland family in Hutton-le-hole had huge whale bones over the farm entrance on the hill above the village. This may be the arch which earlier carried a piece of ships’ timber at the top inscribed “17.ship Valiant. 92” and on the reverse “erected by the late Lady Shephard, 1820”. The Valiant in 1815 took fourteen whales , yielding 200 tons of oil, valued at £8400.

The Whitby historian Shaw-Jeffrey mentioned pairs of whalebones in the grounds of West Hill House, on Sleights hill, in the gardens of Fern Hill and in a field close to Whitby Abbey. Mrs.Gaskell mentioned the arches in her once famous “Sylvia’s Lovers”. G.B.Wood writing in Country Life magazine, 15th April 1965 recorded five large whalebone arches providing the framework of a building near the Whitby Oil house, demolished in 1930



OTHER ARTICLES
• History of the Whitby whaling industry
• The Whitby whale fishing industry
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• Shipbuilding at Scarborough - the wooden barques and schooners
• Famous fishing families - the Whitby Storr family and the Leadleys
• Scarborough ships in the baltic - an article by John Rushton
• Captain Cook and his early life in Staithes and Whitby
• The port of Scarborough in the late 15th Century
• The 200 year history of scarboroughs RNLI
• Filey and the gales of 1860,1867,1869 AND 1880
• The fishing fleets of the 1920's - Hulls Gamecock fleet
• Shipping Ironstone down the coast by John Rushton
• The Yorkshire smuggler - the smuggling of contraband
• Coastal erosion in the 19th Century around the North Bay and Scarborough Castle area
• The early years of the Scarborough Lifeboat
• Paying the rent in Herrings at Whitby - John Rushton
• Fighting the Scots in Scarborough Waters in the early 16th century. John Rushton
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks
• The history of the Scarborough fishing industry

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