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.
Our current exhibition runs from July to the end of September 2012 and is about Scarborough?s ship building industry dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. Over 30 percent of the town?s employment once came from shipbuilding and its related trades. Over 400 boats and ships were constructed during two centuries and the sands of the south bay were littered with boatyards. The Tindall family were the most successful but many other trades supported them such as sail makers, rope makers and chain and anchor smiths. A Scarborough ship was one of the first to take convicts to Australia and many of Tindall?s ships transported troops for the American war of independence. By the end of the 19th century steam was taking the place of sail and metal-hulled vessels replaced wood. By Victorian times very few vessels were being built but boatyards still carried out repairs until the last one closed in 2009.
Our exhibition will give you an insight into this once great industry that helped make Scarborough what it is today.
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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If you wish to do some research on Scarborough's maritime past then please go to our 'Heritage Centre' page accesible from the main home page menu.
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.
What we have achieved so far:
The Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre has been open to visitors since November 2009. We put on public exhibitions that change every few months and have already built up
an impressive library and archive. 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 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.
Our sincere thanks go to everyone who has donated items so far.
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