A History of the Borough
The Borough of
Scarborough has a peripheral location on the east coast of North
Yorkshire, in England.
Scarborough, Whitby and Filey are the key towns and large
areas of the Borough are National Park or Heritage Coast. The
environment of the area provides the basis for a successful tourist
economy.
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The Formation of the Borough of
Scarborough
Hundreds of years ago, some places were made into ‘Boroughs’
by the granting of a charter from the Sovereign, which conferred
certain rights and privileges. Scarborough received its first
charter in c.1163 from Henry II (who was attracted here by the
castle) and, among other things, the townspeople were granted all
the same customs, liberties and acquittances which the citizens of
York enjoy. As York was one of the most important towns in England,
this was considered a great privilege.
For the next 650 years, the town was governed by a Corporation
which, for the greater part of the time, consisted of two Bailiffs,
two Coroners, four Chamberlains and 36 capital or select Burgesses.
The ordinary townspeople had very little say in the selection of
the men who formed the Corporation, as they more or less elected
themselves.
However, in 1835, Parliament passed the municipal Corporations
Act, which completely changed the existing system and for the first
time the Corporation was elected by the people. At first, the only
people who could vote were those who owned land or houses, but
changes have taken place from time to time and today virtually
everyone over 18 years of age has a right to vote in the election
of Councillors.
The Formation of Scarborough
Borough Council
Local Government
in England and Wales was reorganised again in 1974, as a result of
the Local Government Act of 1972. On 1 April 1974, new, larger
local authorities were set up and many smaller authorities ceased
to exist.
The new Scarborough Borough Council, which came into being on
that date, administers an area which was previously served by six
authorities – the former Scarborough Corporation, Scarborough Rural
District Council, Scalby Urban District Council, Filey Urban
District Council, Whitby Urban District Council and Whitby Rural
District Council – as well as a small part of the area previously
administered by Bridlington Rural District Council.
The area administered by the Scarborough Borough Council
stretches from north of Whitby to beyond Filey in the south, has a
population of around 108,000 people and it embraces the whole of
the North Yorkshire coastline as well as more than half the North
York Moors National Park.
Key Facts about the Borough of
Scarborough
Some key facts about the Borough are:
- Scarborough Borough covers an area of 81,654 hectares or 315.27
square miles.
- The Borough's population is 106,243 (Source: 2001 Census Area
Statistics), with 60% of residents living in the three major urban
areas of Scarborough, Whitby and Filey.
- The population of Scarborough Town (comprising Castle, Central,
Eastfield, Falsgrave Park, Newby, North Bay, Northstead, Ramshill,
Stepney, Weaponness and Woodlands wards) is 50,135 (Source: 2001
Census Area Statistics).
- The population of Whitby Town (comprising Mayfield, Streonshalh
and Whitby West Cliff wards) is 13,594 (Source: 2001 Census Area
Statistics).
- The population of Filey Town (comprising Filey ward) is 6,468
(Source: 2001 Census Area Statistics).
- 27.5% of the population are aged over 60, compared with an
average of 20.9% nationally. Only 21.9% of the population are aged
between 20 and 39, compared to 28.1% nationally.
- During the peak season, tourism can double the population.
- More than 50% of the North York Moors National Park lies within
the Borough. This equates to 51,840 hectares or 200.15 square
miles.
- The Borough contains over 1,600 Listed Buildings, and includes
24 designated Conservation Areas which cover 572
hectares.
The Economy of the Borough
of Scarborough
Some information regarding the economy of the Borough
is:
- The Borough has a balanced economy with employment mainly based
on manufacturing, tourism, public sector services and retail.
- The manufacturing industry currently employs over 15% of the
workforce.
- 10.4% of the workforce are employed in hotels and catering,
which is more than twice the national average.
- Industry is generally light and modern with good growth
prospects.
- Over 1,100 firms are listed in the Council's current Business
Database.
A Brief History of Scarborough
A medieval Icelandic saga
tells how two Icelandic Viking brothers called Kormak and Thorgils
were the first men to “establish the fort called Skardaborg”. The
fort was named after one of its founder’s nickname, for Thorgils
was call Skardi, meaning hare-lipped, by his brother. It is now
generally accepted that the name Skardaborg, which has come down to
us as Scarborough, means “the fort belonging to Skardi”.
Kormakssaga tells more about these brothers. Kormak was a
talented poet, described as a wild man with black curly hair while
Thorgils on the other hand was taciturn and easygoing. Both men had
a taste for adventure and plundering around the coasts of Britain
and Ireland. Around the year 966 they decided to make the sheltered
waters of the south bay their base and built the fort. They may
even have reused the ruins of the Roman Signal Station. Kormak was
later killed while raiding in Scotland.
However, the first occupants of Scarborough's dominant Castle
headland formed a village settlement in the early Iron Age,
although the earliest visible remains are those of a Roman Signal
Station. It was late in the Roman occupation, soon after 370 A.D.,
when the Signal Station on the Castle Hill was built. These signal
stations were erected to cope with piratical raiders, but although
manned by garrisons, their prime purpose was not defence; they were
intended as look-out stations from which warning of enemy approach
could be sent along the coast and to inland Roman garrisons.
William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, who led the army of the
Yorkshire Barons at the Battle of the Standard in 1138 near
Northallerton, built the first Castle at Scarborough, on the
headland. King John visited Scarborough Castle in 1201, 1210, 1213
and again in 1216. King Edward I held court at the Castle in 1275
and, when Richard III visited Scarborough in 1484, one of the
towers on the curtain wall was occupied by the Queen.
The Castle has undertaken five sieges, in 1312, 1536, 1557,
1644-45 and 1648. In the Civil War, Scarborough was ultimately the
only royalist port on the East Coast, and it was not until 1645,
with the garrison worn out and stores exhausted that the Castle
surrendered to Parliament.
For more than a year (1665-66), George Fox, the founder of the
Society of Friends, was imprisoned in the ruined Charles’ Tower of
the Castle. Here he suffered great hardships, before he was
released by order of King Charles II.
More recently, in 1914, during the Great War, the German fleet
bombarded the town and Castle. The keep was damaged and the 17th
century barracks almost entirely destroyed.
Scarborough's harbour is also steeped in history. In 1225,
Henry III made a grant of 40 oaks from his woods to the men of
Scarborough to use in the harbour. Later, in 1251, he granted
Charter to "His Bailiffs and Burgesses and other good men of
Scardeburgh: it is for the benefit of the Town of Scardeburgh to
make a certain new port with timber and stone towards the sea
whereby all ships arriving thither may enter and sail out without
danger as well at the beginning of Flood as at High water".
In 1732, George II passed an Act to enlarge the harbour
by building Vincents Pier and the present East Pier at a cost of
£12,000. At this time there were upwards of 300 sailing ships
belonging to Scarborough.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Scarborough was one of
the principal ship building centres on the East Coast. From 1785 to
1810, 209 ships were built with a tonnage of 35,683 tons. As many
as 15 ships were launched in one year. In 1849, a company was
formed to provide means for repairing ships at Scarborough. A
floating dock was built capable of taking ships up to 300
tons.
The first reference to a lighthouse at the end of Vincent’s
Pier occurs in 1804. A signal flag was displayed by day and a light
by night when the depth of the water was not less than 12 feet. In
1914, the lighthouse was seriously damaged during the bombardment
of Scarborough by German cruisers and the tower had to be
dismantled. It was rebuilt in 1931.
Today, Scarborough is a popular holiday destination, with
visitors able to enjoy both the natural beauty and rich
historical significance of the area.
A Brief History of
Whitby
Where the River Esk reaches the North Sea, after crossing
the uplands of North Yorkshire, the ancient seaport and the modern
holiday resort of Whitby has grown to a town of some 14,000+
inhabitants. The east side, with its narrow winding streets and
fishermen’s cottages surmounted by the Abbey (originally founded
657 A.D.) is perhaps more steeped in history than the relatively
modern west side.
The town is rightly proud of its association with famous men
and its close and continuing links with the sea which show the
development and natural decline of such industries as whaling,
shipbuilding, sailmaking and ropemaking, all of which brought much
prosperity to Whitby in their hey-day.
It is impossible to elaborate on the historical detail and
customs of the town in so short a space, but one tradition still
carried on in Whitby may be of particular interest. This is the
Planting of the Penny Hedge. The ceremony takes place yearly on the
morning of Ascension Eve, at approximately 9 o’clock and dates from
1159. It is said that Norman noblemen killed a hermit who had given
sanctuary to a wounded wild boar they were hunting. Dying, the
hermit was said to have forgiven them – but the Abbot of Whitby
ordered that, as a penance, they should erect a hedge every year on
the mud of Whitby harbour, using a penny knife, or forfeit their
lands. Since then, the penance has been faithfully carried
out.
This is but one of many interesting incidents in Whitby’s
history. Of more lasting implication was the ‘Synod of Whitby’. It
was in Whitby that monks representing the Celtic Church, and those
accepting the rule of Rome, met in 664 A.D. to discuss variations
in Church custom and practice, notably methods of fixing the date
of Easter. The system they agreed upon is the one in use
today.
At this time, Whitby was the home of Caedmon, (often called
the father of English sacred song) an illiterate labourer, who was
employed as cowherd and porter at the Abbey. Caedmon had a vision
in which he had presented to him great quantities of remarkable
poetry. The Abbess, Lady Hild, ordered that it should all be
written down. Centuries later the many cantos of Caedmon’s Anglo
Saxon religious verse were still being sung in Northern England and
they exercised great influence on later English poets, especially
Milton.
More than 1,000 years later, when Whitby had become an
important whaling centre, James Cook (1728-1779) born in the
village of Marton, near Middlesbrough, and formerly apprenticed to
a draper in Staithes, 11 miles north, was apprenticed to a local
shipping firm. The house where he lodged with his master can be
seen in Grape Lane. Later, he joined the Royal Navy and was rapidly
promoted to a command. It is as Captain Cook that the world still
knows him – the man who charted the coast of New Zealand and the
eastern coast of Australia and who was one of the greatest
surveyors as well as one of the finest sailors and explorers of all
time. He learned his craft in Whitby vessels trading to the Baltic,
and two of the vessels he used on his long and perilous voyages –
‘Resolution’ and ‘Endeavour’ were Whitby built.
A bronze statue of the famous circumnavigator was erected on
the West cliff and unveiled by Admiral Lord Charles Beresford on 2
October 1912. The bi-centenary of Captain Cook’s sailing on his
first circumnavigation was celebrated in Whitby in August 1968 when
a plaque of commemoration was unveiled by the High Commissioners of
Australia and New Zealand.
Two other remarkable but less known Whitby navigators, the
William Scoresby’s, father and son, added greatly to seafaring
knowledge. Their interest was primarily in whaling, but they made
careful observations of Arctic phenomena and invented several
nautical instruments. The father (1760-1829) pushed further through
the pack ice in 1806 than anyone had before; and Scoresby Land, in
east Greenland, and Scoresby Sound, are named after the son.
Whitby offers the visitor more than history; its situation is
superb in the middle of one of Britain’s most delightful stretches
of coast, with cliffs and fine bays interspersed with picturesque
fishing villages. The noble Abbey may be a beautiful ruin, but the
Parish Church of St Mary, dating partly from 1110, and reached by
199 steps cut in the cliff, is still very much a part of the
town.
Fivelac,
Philaw, Fiveley - all names that appear in ancient
records for Filey, a place that rarely appears in national recorded
history.
However, we do know that the Romans were here in the late 4th
century when a Signal Station was built on Carr Naze and was either
abandoned or sacked around 400 A.D. The remains of this Station
were discovered in the middle of the last century and further
excavations made in the 1920s.
Five stone bases, which are thought to be the bases of a wood
watchtower were found, one of which is decorated with a stag being
hunted by a hound, and can now be seen in the grounds of the
Crescent Gardens. No remains are now visible, the greater part
having been lost due to cliff erosion over the years, but if you
take the Nature Trail on the Brigg and Carr Naze, you will walk
over the spot where the Romans stood looking out for the raiders
from the North all those years ago.
At very low tide a ridge of rocks known as the Spittals, half
way along the Brigg and stretching out to sea in a south
east direction, can be seen and it has often been said that it
is the remains of a Roman pier, but opinion now is that it is a
natural rock formation. One of the caves at the back of the Brigg
is known as ‘The Emperor’s Bath’, but it seems very doubtful that a
Roman Emperor ever did visit what is now Filey.
The Parish Church was built around 1180, although a Saxon
altar was found on the site before the Second World War, so there
must have been a building before the present one.
The springs of fresh water in the Church Ravine and nearness
to the sea were the obvious reasons for the town developing in that
area, with the Church and Manor House on the north side and the
fishermen’s cottages on the south.
The boundary between the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire,
until 1974, ran along the bottom of the Ravine. This separation of
the churchyard and the village gave rise to a local saying ‘He’ll
soon be in the North Riding’ referring to someone very ill and not
expected to recover.
The population of Filey in 1801 was 505 and the real expansion
began in the 1830s when a Birmingham solicitor, Mr Unett, began to
develop new Filey and then, with the coming of the railway in
1846/7, Filey began to grow as a holiday resort and attracted many
of the gentry.
Included in our visitors were Charlotte Bronte who stayed at
Cliff House (now the Bronte Café) and the ‘Swedish Nightingale’,
Jenny Lind, who is also said to have stayed in the same house.
Amongst others were Frederic Delius, the composer, who came as a
boy with his family and stayed in a house which is now part of the
Hylands Retirement Home. Dame Myra Hess, the pianist, and Dame
Madge Kendall, the actress, who had a house (now the White Lodge
Hotel), Church dignitaries, members of the Government and MPs along
with their families, also the Mountbatten family and other Peers
were all visitors in those pre-1914 days.
Filey witnessed an event of national importance in 1779
when a sea battle was fought off Flamborough Head and in Filey Bay.
It was a fight between the ‘Father of the American Navy’, Captain
John Paul Jones, in his ship the ‘Bonhomme Richard’, who was
waiting to attack the British Baltic convoy and the British warship
‘Serapis’, under the command of Captain Richard Pearson. A great
fight took place and the American ship ‘Bonhomme Richard’ sank, but
the ‘Serapis’ was taken by the Americans who claimed the fight as
an American victory – although no ships of the convoy were taken
and the American flagship was lost.
At one critical stage of the fight, Captain Pearson is said to
have called on Captain John Paul Jones to surrender, but the reply
he made (and which is part of American Naval tradition) was ‘I have
not yet begun to fight’. A small boat with seamen escaping from the
battle came ashore in Filey Bay and they were afterwards examined
by one of His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the East Riding.
There have been several attempts by US expeditions to find the
wreck of the ‘Bonhomme Richard’, but without success.
In 1910/11 Filey sands were the scene of pioneer flying in
this country. Mr Blackburn had a flying school. The first passenger
to lose his life in a plane crash in England was on Filey sands
when a plane crashed (only the eighth crash in England at that
time) and both the pilot and the passenger were killed.
Today, Filey is a traditional Victorian English seaside town
with a friendly atmosphere. A perfect place for those who want an
active holiday, or for those who just prefer to relax with the
restful background of fishermen mending their nets.