Scarboroughs Maritime heritage centre

SCARBOROUGHS MARITIME HERITAGE

The Scarborough Maritime Heritage group have opened an office at 36 Eastborough,Scarborough(open Friday to Sunday 11am till 4pm). An initial aim is to build up an archive of Scarborough and Yorkshire coast maritime life. Other activities are being planned.

We welcome donations of books, papers, maps and charts, posters, bills, and records of any kind bearing on the local maritime past. If you or anyone known to you is interested in helping, we would be glad to hear from you. Two significant bodies of archive material have already been offered and there is work to do on them. The latest exhibits are

- Ship's wheel boss, 1890, recovered from wreck of 'Albatross', off Flamborough Head.
- Porthole recovered from wreck of 'The Dromio', 1930, off Whitby, (World War One).
- Cannon ball, 1650, from unknown wreck, off the Farne Islands, Northumberland.

In recent weeks the following items have been donated
- A glass bottle
- Notice about Scarborough Lighthouse
- Trawler Cookery Book
- Book entitled Tunny Fishing for Beginners.
- Framed picture of the Lord Collingwood crew.
- Peaked cap worn by Lifeboat Coxs
- Kelly's Directory of Scarborough

Our sincere thanks to everyone who has donated the above and items in the past.

•We have lots of personal first hand accounts of life at sea, shipwrecks and the fishing communities. Click Here

•Want to read a detailed history or World War One by Paul Allen Click Here

•Want to hear the latest news about the Maritime heritage centre Click Here

•Do you come from one of Scarboroughs old fishing families such as the Rowley family or the Normandales? Do you want to read about the Mainprize family? Click Here

•Interested in serious local history? If so then we have over 50 short articles written by the local historian John Rushton.Click Here

•Want to read about real people in the 1920's ScarboroughClick Here

•This site features a vast number of old photos. Many of these have been kindly lent to us from Scarborough Library. Try this selection of old photos of Sandside. Click Here

•We also have many photos which have been donated from family collections. Try these from the Hodds family Click Here

•Do you come from Filey - if so we have a vast number of articles on this port so closely tied in with ScarboroughClick Here

Unnetie website : This website has been highly supported by Scarborough Library who have provided many photos from their excellent and huge collection. The Unnetie website contains thousands of old black and white photos and artworks from throughout North Yorkshire.

WHY DOES SCARBOROUGH NEED A MARITIME HERITAGE CENTRE?

Scarborough had a major fort, was an important port and was the first seaside resort. Since the 12th century the great rock carried a Norman castle, visited by the mediaeval Kings from Henry II to Richard III, who made the port his base for war against Scotland. The castle was still capable of withstanding long sieges in the 17th century Civil War between King and Parliament. It was garrisoned in the long wars against Napoleon.

Inland from the castle, the Kings chartered a borough of free men, the only royal borough on the Yorkshire coast until the founding of Hull. Palace fishmongers bought their fish at preferential prices for centuries. The old borough over-flowed west of its wall into a second new borough and on to the sands into an undercliff port with a staith, a quay and piers. The fishermen were at the Dogger Bank before 1189. They sailed up the Yorkshire rivers, suppying York and Wakefield. Many monasteries bought Scarborough saltfish and herring. There has been a significant fishing community ever since. Without the fishing, there would have been no borough.

From the 13th to the 16th century, Scarborough was the fourth largest town in Yorkshire, after York, Beverley and Hull. Merchants exported wool, barley, malt and fish. From the 17th to the 19th century, in the great days of sail, this was a major shipbuilding port. The harbour was sustained by a levy on the Newcastle and Sunderland coal trade to London and Europe. Here was a “nursery of seamen”. Some were pirates, some were smugglers, and more were traders, going the world over, many as sea captains in the 19th century.

A coastal spring of medicinal water was discovered in the early 17th century. Scarborough Spa became the nation’s first seaside resort, attracting the country’s aristocracy. Tea and silk were cheap in Georgian Scarborough, because of the smuggling. Sea bathing was pioneered here, and a hundred other novelties which entered the heart of the British people, as holidays spread more widely. There were trips to sea, sand castles, donkey rides, sand races, bathing machines, Pierrots, “rock with letters right through” and “boarding houses”. Dozens of other coastal places followed the Scarborough example.

Legend gives Scarborough an even longer story. Viking raiders are said to have founded a pirates’ base on the short in 966. The Norse King, Harald Hardrada, fought local men below the cliff in 1066. An old ballad says that Robin Hood was here to try his hand at fishing, without success. When the herring moved to the offshore waters from Baltic breeding grounds the Dutchmen followed them for many centuries. The American, John Paul Jones, waited for the collier fleet off the coast.

Everybody came to the seaside resort, from the Marquis of Granby to William Smith, the founder of modern geology. The pioneer of aviation, Sir George Cayley, was born here. The railways took the fish further afield and brought trippers and holidaymakers from ever more distant places.

Scarborough has a rich maritime heritage. The town and the Yorkshire coast deserve a Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre to conserve the records, to display something of that rich history, and to provide a focus for activities that will preserve and celebrate that heritage for our generation and others yet to come.

FORMATION

SMHC was established in 2004 when a Steering Group met to investigate the possibility of setting up a maritime heritage centre. The work they did identified a number of issues. There was clear support from residents and visitors for such a centre. There was support from members of the fishing community and those with an interest in the history of Scarborough. There was a great need for a reputable organisation to receive and hold archives and artefacts that many people wished to loan, donate and give in legacies. A number of other groups and organisations wished to work with SMHC as their interests coincided with the group.