Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre

The Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre is a little gem waiting to be discovered. Situated a short distance up the main road from the historic harbour, the Centre is crammed with lots of interesting exhibits and information about Scarborough's fascinating past. Volunteers are mostly local people, including ex fishermen, with lots of knowledge. They can give you a personal introduction to the exciting growth of Scarborough from a Viking settlement to the heyday of shipbuilding, the bombardment in WW1, our connections with the Titanic and much more.

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On April 14th 1912 the largest moving man made object on earth sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It was an event that had repercussions around the world. Scarborough has two very strong links with the ship. Edward Harland who established the Harland and Wolfe shipyard was born here. Another Scarborian was James Moody. He was the sixth officer on the bridge and helped save many women and children at the cost of his own life. Our exhibition, starting in April and ending in June, will explore these links and the reasons behind the disaster. Check out this new Titanic website Click Here

Entrance to our Centre is FREE and we are open Wednesday to Sunday 11am until 4pm. If you are researching your family history our volunteers can also help you look for information.

The SMHC is run entirely by volunteers and public donations, SMHC is a registered charity, number 1144532 & a company limited by guarentee in England & Wales number 6755717. The Centre's aim is to educate the public about Scarborough's maritime heritage and to make it available to all and for future generations.

The Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre is located at 36 Eastborough, Scarborough, YO11 1NJ. Tel 01723 369361. ALSO ON FACEBOOK - Just use your Facebook homepage search box to find us - Scarborough Maritime Heritage.

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INFORMATION:

The Centre holds many first hand accounts of life at sea, shipwrecks and the fishing communities. Would you like to read them? Click Here

Would you like to read a history of World War One by Paul Allen? Click Here

Interested in local history? If so then the Centre has over 50 short articles written by the local historian John Rushton. Click Here

Would you like to read about the lives of Scarborough people in the 1920s Click Here

This site features a vast number of old photographs. Many of these have been kindly loaned to us by Scarborough Library. Try this selection of old photographs of Sandside. Click Here

The Centre also holds many photographs which have been donated from family collections. Try these from the Hodds family Click Here

Do you come from Filey? If so the Centre holds a vast number of articles on this port that is so closely tied in with Scarborough's history and fishing families. Click Here

Unnetie website : This website has been supported by Scarborough Library which has provided many photos from their excellent collection. The Unnetie website contains thousands of old black and white photographs and works of art from throughout North Yorkshire.

Archive:

Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre is steadily building up its library and its archives. Ready reference files are now available to visitors and include those listed below. Some are very full but some remain to be developed. Donations of source material, articles, cuttings, scholars' notes and photographs continue to be made and are very welcome.

Information already held includes:

Bombardment of Scarborough (15th December 1914), Customs & Smugglers, Fishermen and fisher girls, Fishing industry, Harbour, History of the port, Lifeboats, Scarborugh at war, Seamen, Sea training, Seamen's verse, Ships, Ship building, Shipwrecks, Steam and screw trawlers, Sub aqua.

Information held on ports and fisheries includes:

Information held on ports and fisheries includes - Aberdeen, Bridlington, Filey, Flamborough, Grimsby, Hartlepool, Holland ports, Hull, London, Robin Hood's Bay, Staithes, Whitby and other English and Scottish ports.

Information held on maritime subjects includes:

Canals, Coastal erosion, Emigration, Explorers, Fish, Fishing, Ganseys, Maps and charts, Missions to Seamen, Maritime museums, Pirates, Royal Navy, Seamanship, Sea songs, Ships, Shipping companies, Shipwrecks, Slavery, Smugglers and Customs, Spanish Armada, Yorkshire's coast and coastal villages, Yorkshire's maritime history, War at sea, Whaling and Yachting.

Information held on Scarborough and district history includes:

Archaeology, Aviation, Castles, Churches, Directories, early Scarborough deeds, Education, Falsgrave, Hackness, Houses, Local Histories, Industry, Leisure, Local Government, Places within Scarborough, Public houses and Hotels, Renaissance, the Resort, Scalby, Scarborough maps, Scarborough people, Shops, Social life, Streets, Transport, the Undercliff, Villages, Visitors, Wills, World War 2, the Workhouse and a list of other archive sources in Scarborough.

Donations of bills, books, maps and charts, papers, posters, and records of any kind relating to local maritime history are welcome. If you or anyone you know might be interested in helping us, we would be glad to hear from you. Two significant collections of archive material have already been donated and there is plenty of work to do on them.

Items donated to the Centre include:-

1650 cannon ball from an unknown wreck off the Farne Islands, Northumberland. 1890 ship's wheel boss recovered from the wreck of the Albatross off Flamborough Head. 1930 porthole recovered from the wreck of the Dromio off Whitby. Book on 'Tunny Fishing for Beginners'. Framed picture of the Lord Collingwood crew. Glass bottle embossed with Scarborough Lighthouse. Kelly's Directory of Scarborough. Old sign from Scarborough Lighthouse. Peaked cap worn by lifeboat coxes. Replica model of Scarborough lifeboat tractor made of matchsticks and involving eight months of work. Trawler cookery book.

Our sincere thanks go to everyone who has donated items.

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 headland 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. For centuries, palace fishmongers bought their fish at preferential prices. The old borough over-flowed west of its wall into a second new borough and on to the sands and into an undercliff port with a staith, a quay and piers. Fishermen were fishing at Dogger Bank before 1189. They sailed up the Yorkshire rivers, supplying 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 when 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 many other novelties 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 shore 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. In 1845 Scarborough Railway Station opened for the first time when it became possible to transport fish further afield and bring 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 records, 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.